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LECTURES 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



DELIVERED IN PHILADELPHIA, 



BY CLERGYMEN OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 



IN THE FALL AND WINTER OF 



1853-4. 



W I8 ^ 



"WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY 

ALONZO POTTER, D.D., LL.D., 

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER & CO. 
1855. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
E. H. BUTLER & CO., 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



The Library 

of Congress 

washington 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



ABOUT a year since, the Editor of this volume, in con- 
junction with the Rev. Dr. Morton (President of the 
Standing Committee), and the Rev. Dr. Stevens (Secretary 
of the Convention of the Diocese of Pennsylvania), pro- 
jected a Course of Lectures on the Evidences of Religion, 
to be prepared with special reference to the present exi- 
gencies of that subject, and to the wants of young men of 
cultivated and thoughtful habits. The following List of 
Subjects was proposed : 

1. Philosophy of Religion. 2. Philosophical Scepticism 
(Historical, Critical). 3. Pantheistic Idealism. 4. Mate- 
rialism (Life, Soul). 5. Spiritualism. 6. Socialism. 7. 
Relation of the Objective and Subjective Factors in Revela- 
tion. 8. Inspiration. 9. Natural and Revealed Religion. 
10. Fatalistic Tendency of Modern Science. 11. Revela- 
tion confronted with Ethnology. 12. Revelation con- 
fronted with Astronomy. 13. Revelation confronted with 
Archeology. 14. Revelation confronted with Philology. 
15. Revelation confronted with Geology. 16. Historical 
Evidences of Christianity (Character and Value) . 17. In- 
ternal Evidences of Christianity. 18. Theory of Prophecy 



vi ADVERTISEMENT. 

(Structure, Use, Inspiration). 19. Theory of Miracles. 
20. Theory of Development (Newman, Schaff). 

Invitations to take part in this course, were addressed to 
a considerable number of the Bishops and Clergy — the 
names of others being reserved for subsequent Courses. 
These invitations were accepted by the authors of the fol- 
lowing Lectures, and by a few others, of whom some were 
providentially hindered from fulfilling their engagement ; 
the rest have not found it convenient to prepare their 
manuscripts in time for this publication. Bishop Elliott 
gave two Lectures, and Bishops Otey and Potter, the Kev. 
Doctors Morton, Goodwin, Coit, and T. M. Clark, and the 
Rev. A. C. Coxe, each delivered one Lecture in addition 
to those which are contained in the present volume. 
Some of these it is expected will be published hereafter. 



CONTENTS. 



l'AGE 

INTRODUCTION— APOLOGETICS . . 7 

By Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, D.D., LL.D. 

L THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION ... 57 

By Rev. Abram N. Littlejohn. 

II. PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM- 83 

By Rev. Edioin Harwood. 

III. ON MIRACLES . .' 101 

By Rev. Charles Mason. 

IV. IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS 125 

By Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, D.D., LL.D. 

V. PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT 15 

By Rev. M. A. Be W. Hoioe, D.D. 

VI. ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT ....... 171 

By Rt. Rev. Thomas Atkinson, D.D. 

VII. RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT 187 

By Rev. Samuel Fuller, D.D. 



(3) 



iv 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

VIII. THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES . . . .225 

By Rev. John B. Kerfoot, D.D. 

IX. ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD . . .257 

By Rev. C. M. Butler, D.D. 

X. RELATION OF THE OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS IN 

REVELATION . . . ...;*. . . . . . . 2S1 

By Rev. Charles Minnegerode. 

XL THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT AGAINST THE 

GOSPEL . . 303 

By Rt. Rev. George Burgess, D.D. 

XII. SOCIALISM. .. .. . . . . , 323 

By Rev. Francis Vinton, D.D. 

XIII. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 337 

By Rev. A. H. Vinton, D.D. 

XIV. HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 363 

By Rt. Rev. John Henry Hopkins, D.D., LL.D. 

XV. INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 3S5 

By Rev. Gregory T. Bedell. 



EXTRACT FROM BISHOP POTTER'S ADDRESS TO THE DIOCESE 
OF PENNSYLVANIA, MAY, 1854 . , 407 



|ntrohttioii 



r 



INTRODUCTION. 



APOLOGETICS. 

rpHE history of Auguste Coinpte is instructive. It is 
J_ now more than a quarter of a century since he appeared 
in France as the Reformer and Legislator of the Science of 
the World. His boldness was great, and yet it was hardly 
greater than his genius. Though long neglected by the 
savans of his own country, and hardly known abroad, he 
has gradually won a proud position among the thinkers of 
our time, and in some respects he has vindicated his claim to 
a place above them all. 

But he was far from happy in choosing the first principles 
of his Philosophy. They belonged to the narrowest and 
coldest of the systems which have been erected on the basis 
of Locke. He assumed the entire incompetency of the 
human mind to penetrate beyond the relative and phenome- 
nal, and excluded Metaphysics and Theology from the sphere 
of human science, in a tone so peremptory and contemp- 
tuous, that nothing but the transcendent ability with which 
he wrote could have saved him from instant banishment 
from the pale of philosophy. On this contracted basis he 

2 (9) 



10 



INTRO DUC T I 0 N. 



has toiled, with titanic strength and patience, to rear a 
complete system of Science, now commonly known as Posi- 
tivism. The Cours de PJiilosophie Positive commenced the 
series of his publications more than twenty years ago; the 
Cours de Politique Positive, not yet completed, forms the last 
of his contributions to Philosophy that we have seen. In 
France, M. Letre has been the popular expounder of his 
doctrines. In England, that office has been assumed by 
Miss Harriet Martineau, and by Mr. Lewes. 

In comparing his last with his first work, it becomes 
manifest that an essential change has come over the spirit 
of his speculations. He has had experiences, which demon- 
strate how impotent a mere theory may become when it 
stands face to face with the great moral facts and sentiments 
of our existence. M. Compte, as he more than once tells 
us, was inspired with a passionate attachment for Madame 
Clotilde de Vaux, who died in 1846. That attachment 
taught him that " sentiment'' as well as intellect was enti- 
tled to a place in the domain of reasoning, and her death, 
with other personal causes, and with despair of regenerating 
society through mere science alone, seems to have induced 
at last the conviction that Eeligion of some kind was the 
indispensable condition of attaining to a truly normal state. 
Hence, after rejecting that Religion, at the outset of his 
career, as a mere dream of humanity in its childhood, we 
find him towards its close re-constituting it (in a shape in- 
deed most absurd and fantastic), as one of the great ideas 
of the soul and as one of the necessary constituents of the 
highest condition of society. 

A fact like this needs no comment. It teaches, more im- 
pressively than volumes, what man needs in the moral 
crises of his being, and it demonstrates that a merely specu- 
lative philosophy is not the safest foundation for a science 



INTRODUCTION. 



1! 



which would comprehend all the facts and necessities of 
humanity. 

The same truth is taught most significantly by the specu- 
lations of Kant, who ranks second to no modern as a 
profound philosophical thinker, and who proposed, in his 
Critic of the Reason, to ascertain the entire resources of the 
human mind. He came to the conclusion that we possess 
no faculty capable of reaching outward reality,* and at 
the end of his critical examination of the Pare Reason, 
found directly before him " the yawning abyss of an ab- 
solute subjectivity."*)" From this his vigorous and earnest 
soul recoiled. Hence, in his Critique of the Practical Rea- 
son, the result of maturer contemplations, he builds his 
theory on those same necessary convictions of mankind 
which he had previously rejected. He insists on the moral 
exigencies of humanity, and finds in them a guarantee for 
the objective validity of those grand ideas, — God, Immor- 
tality, Eecompense, — which the speculative reason, accord- 
ing to him, does, indeed, project, but cannot legitimate. 
In this reaction from speculative idealism towards a quasi 
mysticism, Kant exhibits in his own career one of the 
leading characteristics of speculative philosoph}', — the his- 
tory of which is little more than a history of vibrations 

* We ought, perhaps, to except the existence of the external world ; but Sir 
Wm. Hamilton well observes, " The proof of its reality which Kaut attempted 
(independently of the necessary belief of mankind), is now admitted by one and 
all of his disciples to be so inconsequent, that it may be reasonably doubted 
whether he ever intended it for more than an exoteric disclaimer of the esoteric 
idealism of his doctrine. But the philosopher who deemed it a scandal to 
philosophy and human reason to found the proof of a material world — in itself 
to us a matter of supreme indifference on belief ;— on belief, on feeling, after- 
wards established the proof of all the highest objects of our interest— God, Free 
Will, and Immortality."— Notes on Eeid, p. 792, 2d ed. 1849. 

f Jacobi. 



12 



INTRODUCTION. 



between the extremes of sensualism or idealism on one 
side, and those of scepticism or mysticism on the other. 

These remarks will prepare us for a distinction which 
we conceive to be all-important in discussing the subject of 
Apologetics, or the Evidences of Religion. There are two 
points of view from which the whole subject of Evidence 
must be considered, if we would understand properly the 
entire scope of its principles and relations. The one is prac- 
tical, the other is purely speculative, or theoretical. The 
latter belongs to science ; the former to life. 

We shall accordingly offer some remarks upon what, for 
the sake of convenience, we may designate as the Practical 
and Speculative Problems pertaining to the whole matter 
of belief and scepticism, and we shall then suggest a few 
considerations bearing more immediately upon Religious 
Scepticism, and especially upon the religious scepticism of 
our own day. 

1. The Practical Problem. 

When we come to act, we all necessarily proceed upon 
the supposition that there is such a thing as truth, and 
that this truth can be so ascertained, as to justify and 
imperatively require, on our part, a corresponding conduct. 
The evidence on which we proceed rarely amounts to 
demonstration in the proper sense of that term. It 
amounts only to a probability, which varies in different 
degrees from the highest moral certainty to the lowest pre- 
sumption. 

On such probabilities, all men, whether peasants or 
philosophers, are accustomed to act with spontaneous and 
unhesitating alacrity. " Nature," says Pascal, " confounds 
the Pyrrhonist." In other words, the absolute sceptic, who 
on speculative grounds holds that there is no certainty, is 
a sceptic only in theory. Neither Hume, Bayle, iEnesede- 



INTRODUCTION. 



13 



mus, nor Pyrrho, ever pretended to incorporate their specu - 
lative doubts into their daily life. If wronged, they went 
like other men to the law for redress, nor did they ever 
question that the principles of Evidence, which were applied 
in ascertaining the reality and extent of their wrongs, were 
founded in truth and reason. 

The Practical Problem presented by Apologetics is this : 
can the Christians faith be vindicated on those principles of 
Evidence, which in respect to this life men accept and act 
upon without distrust or hesitation ? It is the province of 
Apologetics, as a branch of Practical Philosophy, to main- 
tain the affirmation of this question. 

The weight which is to be attached to testimony, oral or 
circumstantial, is a question with which we constantly deal ; 
and the criteria which ought to determine our judgment 
have been developed, especially in connexion with Practical 
Jurisprudence — with a fulness and precision which leaves 
us little to ask. In respect to the signs that foreshadow 
coming events, and those that point to the operation of 
certain causes and powers, we have also rules of judging on 
which we act without hesitation. Thus we are supplied 
with principles of evidence or tests of truth, the use and 
application of which form no small part of our moral 
education. They are evidently intended to regulate not 
only our opinions, but yet more our practice. In enabling 
us to pronounce on the probability of any statement that 
pertains to the present, the past, or the future, they make 
it our duty to recognise the influence which that statement 
ought to exercise now and hereafter upon our actions. 

This holds in respect to every subject that can by possi- 
bility involve our duty or welfare. If the historical state- 
ments, for example, which we find in the Bible will bear 
the various tests of credibility laid down by such writers as 
Starkie and Phillips on the Law of Evidence, then they be- 



11 



INTRODUCTION. 



come at once entitled to our acceptance. If the Gospel of 
John has every mark of veracity which can be found in 
the Annals of Tacitus and more besides, then he who 
receives the latter has already concluded himself against 
rejecting the other. He convicts himself of flagrant incon- 
sistency if he adopt, and then at pleasure repudiate the 
same criteria of judging; if at one moment he rest on these 
criteria as unquestionable and important, and at the next 
moment — because a subject presents itself which he happens 
not to relish — treat them with neglect or disdain. 

So in regard to the testimony yielded by our own souls 
to the moral contents of Scripture, and the attestations 
supplied by these souls, and by the world without, to the 
existence of God, to Immortality, and Retribution. Did 
such attestations have respect only to an impending and 
eventful trial in this life, which is fast approaching, no sane 
man would deny that they ought to command our instant 
and profound consideration. In respect to interests that 
press upon our senses, that are urged upon our notice by 
the counsel and example of all men, we spontaneously 
yield, not merely our judgment, but our conduct to the in- 
fluence of these laws of evidence. But it is part of our 
trial as candidates for a higher life, that we are able to 
overlook and disregard objects in proportion as they recede 
from our grosser perceptions or belong to a remoter future. 
And does it not convict us of being under some sore delu- 
sion, in respect to " heavenly things," that where they are 
concerned we can coolly reject, or accepting, can calmly 
and habitually disregard, the very same principles which in 
respect to " earthly things" we constantly and heartily act 
upon ? 

Apologetics deal mainly with those who profess to disbe- 
lieve ; the pulpit and the religious press, in their practical 
lessons, deal with those who, believing in name, still live 



INTRODUCTION. 



15 



for the most part as if they believed not. The evidences 
of Religion, as usually taught, rest their appeals mainly on 
the arg amentum ad hominem, They do not enter into 
metaphysical speculations respecting the validity of all 
knowledge, and respecting the nature of the religious prin- 
ciple in man. They simply labour to bring the great 
Christian verities into the same general category with be- 
liefs on which we are all content and glad to rest every 
day. The difficulties in the way of the Christian faith are 
shown to be of the same kind with those that attach to 
many of the convictions and presumptions that we are 
compelled to proceed upon in " the life that now is/'* The 
positive proofs in the shape of historic evidence, — the attes- 
tations given by our own hearts to the truths of Natural 
Religion, the inward witness of the soul to the words of 
Christ as words of soberness and Divine truth, — the monu- 
mental confirmations that speak to us from mouldering ruins, 
from hoary traditions, from institutions and ordinances and 
commemorative observances, coeval with the very infancy of 
our faith, — these together form a majestic and solid mass 
of evidence before which, in respect to " things seen," the 
hardiest scepticism would shrink back. The grounds on 
which Strauss would invalidate the Gospel History must, 
if properly extended, prove fatal ultimately to all historical 
documents whatever. 

Thus then stands the case, when considered in the only 
light which is really important — the light of interest and 
duty. Men, even those least prone to credulity, or most in- 
clined to scepticism, constantly treat as incontestable, evi- 
dence which is vastly less clear and cogent than that which 

* These difficulties tare also met by showing that they are vastly less formi- 
dable than those which must be encountered if we resort to unbelief. — See Faber 
on the Difficulties of Infidelity. 



16 



INTRODUCTION. 



authenticates the Christian Revelation, As a matter which 
comes home to " men's business and bosoms" it is, as Butler 
has saicl, " fully sufficient for all the purposes of pro- 
bation," "purposes which it answers (he adds) in several 
respects, which it would not do, if it were as overbearing 
as is desired."* To make it more overbearing might not be 
consistent with a proper degree of freedom in man's will ; 
it clearly would not be consistent with a proper culture 
through the intellect of his heart and his conscience. Faith, 
to be a true and ennobling power, must be compounded of 
acts, which are moral as well as intellectual; it must be 
grown to some extent as the fruit of conflict between oppo- 
sing probabilities and between the lower and higher prin- 
ciples of our nature. Religious faith, above all needs, the 
development which comes only through discipline and trial. 
And hence the wisdom of the following admirable hints 
from the same source. Though we have not faculties to 
distinguish different degrees of evidence with perfect exact- 
ness, "yet," Butler urges, "in proportion as they are dis- 
cerned they ought to influence our practice. For it is as 
real an imperfection in the moral character not to he influenced 
in practice hy a lower degree of evidence when discerned, as 
it is in the understanding not to discern it. And as in all 
subjects which men consider, they discern the lower as well 
as higher degrees of it proportionably to their fairness and 
honesty, and as in proportion to defects in the understanding 
men are unapt to see lower degrees of evidence, are in 
danger of overlooking evidence when it is not glaring, and 
are easily imposed upon in such cases — so in proportion to 
the corruption of the heart they seem capable of satisfying 
themselves with having no regard in practice to evidence 
acknowledged real, if it be not overbearing. From these 
things it must follow that doubting concerning religion 

* Analog}-, part II., ch. 7. 



INTRODUCTION. 



17 



implies such a degree of evidence for it, as, joined with the 
consideration of its importance, unquestionably lays men 
under the obligations before mentioned, to have a dutiful 
regard for it in all their behaviour.* 

" Persons who speak of the Evidence of Religion as 
doubtful (Butler says again, in another place), and of this 
supposed doubtfulness, as a positive argument against it, 
should be put upon considering what that evidence indeed 
is which they act upon with regard to their temporal inte- 
rests. For it is not only extremely difficult, but in many 
cases absolutely impossible, to balance pleasure and pain, 
satisfaction and uneasiness, so as to be able to sav on which 
side the overplus is. There are the like difficulties and 
impossibilities in making the due allowances for a change 
of temper and taste, for satiety, disgusts, ill health — any 
of which render men incapable of enjoying, after they have 
obtained what they most eagerly desired. Numberless, too, 
are the accidents, besides that one of untimely death, which 
may even probably disappoint the best concerted schemes, 
and strong objections are often seen to lie against them not 
to be removed or answered, but which seem overbalanced 
by reasons on the other side, so as that the certain difficul- 
ties and dangers of the pursuit are by every one thought 
justly disregarded, upon account of the appearing greater 
advantages in case of success, though there be but little 
probability of it. Lastly, every one observes our liableness, 
if we be not upon our guard, to be deceived by the false- 
hood of men, and the false appearance of things ; and this 
danger must be greatly increased if there be a strong bias 
within, suppose from indulged passion, to favour the deceit. 
Hence arises that great uncertainty and doubtfulness of 
proof, wherein our temporal interest really consists, what 
are the most probable means of attaining it, and whether 

* Butler's Analogy, p. 270. 

3 



18 



INTRODUCTION. 



those means will be eventually successful. And number- 
less instances there are in the daily course of life in wlikli all 
men think it reasonable to engage in pursuits, tlwugh the pro- 
bability is greatly against succeeding, and to make such pro- 
vision for themselves as it is supposable they may have occasion 
for, though the plain acknowledged probability is that they 
never shall."* 

To these passages, so well calculated to provoke thought, 
let us add one more from a contemporary and correspondent 
of Butler (Dr. Samuel Clarke) : " Were there hardly any 
other evidence at all than barely the excellency and rea- 
sonableness of the great truths of religion, together with 
the consideration of the vast importance of them, yet even 
in that case it would be infinitely wisest and most agreeable 
to reason for men to live according to the rules of the Gos- 
pel. And though their faith extended no further than 
only to a belief of the possibility of the truth of the Chris- 
tian revelation ; yet even this alone ought in all reason to 
have weight enough to determine reasonable creatures to 
live soberly, righteously, and godly. For is it not plainly 
most reasonable, as an ancient writerf expresses it, 6 if each 
of the opposite opinions were equally doubtful and uncer- 
tain, yet by all means to embrace that which brings some 
hope along with it, rather than that which brings none. 
For on one side of the question there is no danger at all 
of incurring any calamity, if that which we believe and 
expect should at last prove false ; but on the other side, 
there is the greatest hazard in the world of the loss of eter- 
nal life, if the opinion which unbelievers rely upon should 
at last prove an error. And again, what say ye, 0 ye 
ignorant men ! ye men of miserable and most deplorable 
folly ! can ye forbear fearing within your hearts, that at 
least these things may possibly prove true which ye now 

* Analogy, part II., ch. 6. f Arnobius. 



INTRODUCTION. 



19 



despise and mock at ? Have ye not at least some misgiv- 
ings of mind, lest possibly that which ye now perversely 
and obstinately refuse to believe, ye should at last be con- 
vinced, by sad experience, when it will be too late to 
repent?' Nor is this the judgment of Christian writers 
only, but also of the wisest and most considerate heathens. 
c We ought to spare no pains,' saith Plato, 6 to obtain the 
habits of virtue and wisdom in this present life. For the 
prize is noble, and the hope is very great.' And Cicero — 
6 They have gained a great prize, indeed, who have per- 
suaded themselves to believe that when death comes, they 
shall perish utterly. What comfort is there ; what is there 
to be boasted of in that opinion ?' And again : ' If after 
death,' saith he, ' as some little and contemptible philoso- 
phers think, I shall be nothing, yet there is no danger that 
when we are all dead, those philosophers shall laugh at me 
for my error.' "* 

In tracing the history of Apologetics, we find that it has 
been generally discussed as a practical question. Objections 
have been made, doubts insinuated; and the friends of Chris- 
tianity have come forward to repel them, and to show that 
the difficulties which embarrass Faith are insignificant when 
compared with those which encompass Infidelity. In its 
early infancy, the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified was 
foolishness to one party, and a stumbling-block to another. 
Yet it was preached, and that preaching vindicated itself 
by arguments addressed to the understanding as well as by 
miraculous demonstrations from Heaven. He who spake 
with a Divine authority and power, spake also with a logic 
so close and pungent that it often sent away his adversaries 
covered with shame. So he who in his preaching renounced 
all dependence on " enticing words of man's wisdom" va- 

* Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 454. Lond. 1738. 



20 



INTRODUCTION. 



liantly faced every objector on his own ground, and instead 
of simply dogmatizing, confounded both Jews and Greeks, 
proving that Jesus was the very Christ. In his steps trod 
Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Arnobius, and the other early 
Apologists of the Church. They met Judaism and Pagan- 
ism face to nice, confiding in the power of truth properly 
presented to vanquish, under God, the stoutest unbelief. 
Their arguments were not such as we learn by rote in schools 
of Theology, or from bodies of Divinity : arguments which 
we reproduce with little reference to the special wants of 
those around us. They were such as can be evolved only 
by deep reflection on the pressure of sore emergencies, from 
the depths of souls rich in Divine and human love, and 
burning with an intense zeal for God and his truth. And 
these trials of our faith, these onsets of a captious and un- 
relenting criticism — coupled often with a bloody persecution, 
have been rich in blessing to our faith. They have put to 
flight a dead and arrogant dogmatism. They have com- 
pelled polemics to hunt up their best weapons, long per- 
haps disused, and to lay aside all that are of doubtful 
temper. They have stimulated research in every branch 
of knowledge that can by any possibility cast new light 
on the claims of the Gospel, and they thus add from age to 
age new materials to the stupendous mass of evidence 
which testifies in favour of Jesus of Nazareth. In this way 
the enemies of Religion often do it a service more essential 
than can be rendered to it by its friends. 

Christianity is a Religion which courts inquiry. It in- 
sists, as was never done before, on an " honest and sincere 
heart," as the condition precedent of all proper appreciation 
of its nature and all effectual reception of its spirit and 
power. But at the same time it also insists upon its right 
to consideration and obedience, on the single ground of its 
objective proofs — proofs which are fitted to convince even 



INTRODUCTION. 



21 



the most unspiritual, if they only give them heed. It has 
arguments adapted to every variety of capacity, tempera- 
ment, and culture. And there is the crowning argument 
of all, which is supplied by the lives of its disciples, and 
which grows stronger just in proportion as we most need 
it. " By their fruits shall ye know them," is the test of 
tests for a principle or a system of doctrine, and never has 
our faith emerged so triumphantly from the application of 
this test as in her times of fiercest trial. Her power to con- 
quer foes and extend her sway over ignorance and sin, her 
ability to convince gainsayers and win over scoffing scepti- 
cism, have never shone out so brightly as when, to human 
eye, all things seemed to be against her. Then it is that 
her people, purged of earthly passion, and inspired with a 
divine enthusiasm, mount up as on eagles' wings, to a 
more than earthly virtue. And then, if ever, our faith 
might renounce all dependence on dialectics, while it de- 
monstrates on the open arena of toil and travail, the celes- 
tial spirit it breathes, and the superhuman energy with 
which it is endowed. Yet even at such seasons, Christi- 
anity is still ready to give reasons for the hope that is in 
her. Even then her sons argue, while they suffer, and at 
no periods in the history of the Church have they done it 
more acutely or profoundly than when they had in full 
view the fagot and the stake. 

The days on which we have fallen are not days of perse- 
cution. They are days of ease; and therefore days of 
languid faith. Even among those who profess Christ, 
religious service, whether in the sanctuary, or in the duties 
and charities of daily life, is sadly marred by a spirit of 
epicurean self-indulgence. The robust and lofty zeal which 
loves to encounter foes, and is prodigal of self-sacrifice, is 
now replaced too often, by a sordid spirit, which shuns 
hardship, and cares only to escape perdition at last. On 



22 



INTRODUCTION. 



the other hand, among those who decline submission to the 
word of Christ, many of the amenities and graces of the 
Christian character are affected. Many too, who as Deists 
or avowed Sceptics, would have poured coarse ridicule and 
invective on the doctrines of the Cross in a former age, 
now profess and call themselves Christians. They cannot 
away with its distinguishing doctrines, bat they honour the 
morality of the New Testament—they are willing to uphold 
the religion of their country, and they condescendingly 
admit, that when properly retrenched and amended by the 
aid of their spiritual insight, the Gospels afford the best 
Republication of Natural Theology, the nearest approach to 
the one absolute religion that the world has seen. This 
spurious Christianity naturally amalgamates with the 
cultivation of letters and the progress of science. Suavity 
and delicacy of thought are recommended. Profligacy is 
represented as losing all its deformity when it loses half its 
grossness. The individual conscience is put forward as 
supreme arbiter of all our conduct, and the instinctive im- 
pulses of the soul as carrying with them a sufficient pledge 
of their own lawfulness. Measuring all things by itself, 
the mind is given over to self-laudation and self-idolatry. 
Every declaration of God is to be examined by the finite 
measure of our understanding. Rationalism is substituted 
for faith, and just so much of religious sentiment retained, 
as the mind of man can comprehend and the natural heart 
approve. 

What is to be expected of such a Christianity ? " While the 
gentle gale breathes sweetly, and the bright sun shines, none 
of the monsters of the deep will rise to view. So long as 
these shadows of Christian virtue continue the world's 
favourites, this substitute for our faith will retain its cha- 
racter of decorum and amiability, but no longer. Let sen- 
suality command profit or applause, the gifted poet be- 



INTRODUCTION. 



23 



comes the willing pander to the lowest appetites of human 
nature. Is the established order of civil subjection con- 
demned by the opinion of the world ? The philosopher 
will serenely assist in delivering up to slaughter those who 
refuse to join the ranks of anarchy. Is the Church or the 
cloister stigmatized by the multitude as the stronghold of 
superstition? Those who frequent them will be surren- 
dered to violence even by the advocates of a high civiliza- 
tion with as little remorse as the Inquisition once immolated 
the heretic. No form of faith branded as hostile to human 
progress by these ' friends of light' will escape the utmost 
extremity of hatred and persecution if it shall dare to be 
loyal to its convictions."* 

It becomes the guardians of truth then, to be on the alert. 
They will be cajoled if possible — into a surrender of the only 
part of Keligionf which is worth contending for. They will 
be urged and entreated to accept the sophistries of earthly 
wisdom, as an adequate compromise ; to seek toleration for 
Christianity as a favour from enlightened unbelief ; to pur- 
chase a truce, at any price, from those who despise the law 
of the Lord. Let none of those things move them. Their 
province in these days is to stand fast by the old land-marks. 
Are the noblest bulwarks of our Faith assailed ? even belief 

* Sir Francis Palgrave, altered. 

f Lessing, the poet and philosopher, though a religious sceptic, thus speaks 
of Neologists : 

" A botch-work of smatterings and half-philosophy is that system of religion 
which people now want to set up in the place of the old one; and with far more 
invasion upon reason and philosophy than the old one ever pretended. If Christ 
is not the True God, the Mahommedan religion is indisputably far better than 
the Christian, and Mahommed himself was incomparably a greater and more 
honourable man than Jesus Christ; for he was more truth-telling, more cir- 
cumspect in what he said, and more zealous for the honour of the one and only 
God, than Christ was, who, if he did not exactly give himself out for God, yet 
at least said a hundred two-meaning things to lead simple people to think so ; 
while Mahommed could never be charged with a single instance of double- 
dealing in this way." 



24 



INTRODUCTION. 



in the Divine Personality, in a Sovereign and all perfect 
"Will — in the Supernatural, as the great element in Miracle, 
Prophecy, and Providence — in the Gospel, as a medicine for 
diseased and all but dead humanity — in the mission of the 
Comforter, and in the regeneration which he, through 
Christ's truth, works in our poor souls and bodies — are these 
the great fundamentals of our Faith assailed ? Let those 
who have been set for the defence of the Gospel see to 
it that they are not wanting. These grand verities must 
be intensified with a new life in our own souls. They must 
be evolved with new clearness and force on the conscious- 
ness of others. That we may feel and comprehend more 
adequately the glory that there is in Christ's Cross, we 
must study it more profoundly, look to it more earnestly 
and confidingly as our souls' only hope, and pray without 
ceasing that through it the world may be crucified unto us 
and we unto the world. 

We see reason, then, why the evidences of religion should 
from time to time be examined anew. The whole question 
between faith and unbelief needs to be re- argued now as a 
momentous issue that belongs to life, and to the most urgent 
wants of mankind. The world is full of sophists, like those 
who provoked the chastisement of Socrates. It contains 
many, too, who are astray only through perplexity, and 
who yearn for emancipation from the pangs of suspense 
and incertitude. That relief the Church is bound to afford 
to the utmost of her ability. She is not, of course, to 
suffer discussions of the evidences to supersede her grand 
mission, as the bearer of overtures of pardon and grace 
from her Divine Lord ; as the expounder of an all-compre- 
hending morality, which is summed up in that best of 
words, Love ; as the advocate for an unreserved surrender 
to Christ of all our faculties — soul, body, and spirit. But 
she is to show her credentials. She is to instruct those. 



INTRODUCTION. 



25 



who believe, also, in the nature and value of those creden- 
tials. Laymen, not less than clergymen, need this instruc- 
tion. It is their duty, no less than ours, to be ever ready 
to give, to all who ask or need it, a reason for their faith, 
They, besides, have opportunities for discovering the exist- 
ence of doubts and difficulties among unbelievers which no 
clergyman can enjoy. They meet — as he cannot — the 
multitudes who are tempted by the strange pretensions and 
monstrous absurdities, which are abroad in this age of intel- 
lectual and moral chaos. At such a time the faith of many 
is insensibly shaken ; and we must make our election be- 
tween the forecast which anticipates, and to the utmost of 
its power prevents apostasies, and the tardy and expensive 
zeal which devotes itself to the much harder work of re- 
claiming them. No man can number those whom a word 
in season, from well instructed and earnest lips — whether 
spoken publicly or from house to house — might have saved 
from the greatest and most perilous of defections. 

It is not only, however, as we have already intimated, 
from monstrous delusions or impious self-conceits, that our 
faith is in danger. It suffers also from those who think 
themselves its friends. Errors in philosophy, which involve 
the very corner-stone of a true Christian theism, are em- 
braced unconsciously by many who honestly love the pu- 
rity and world-wide humanity of the Gospel. More than 
once, within the enclosure of the Church, and in discussions 
among churchmen, has a virtual Pantheism crept in. It 
was so in the case of John Scotus Erigena (9th century), 
who has been compared to a sphynx, stationed at the 
threshold of the Middle Ages. It was so again with the 
ideal pantheism of De Chartres (13th century), and a little 
later with the material pantheism of his disciple, David de 
Dinant. It is so now. This philosophy, so fatal to all 
active piety and virtue, has infected not a little of our 
4 



INTRODUCTION. 



science. It has insinuated itself still more widely through 
our literature. Who can turn from Cowper or Milton to 
some of the most gifted seers of our own time, and not see 
that in respect to the great issues between Theism and 
Pantheism, Freedom and Fatalism, Materialism and Imma- 
terialism, Kedemption and Development, their position is 
too often equivocal ? It is not so much that they are open, 
flagrant errorists, as that their conceptions of the beautiful 
and good are often materially tinged, and sometimes wholly 
interpenetrated, by speculations which substitute abstrac- 
tions for persons, and cloudy dreams of a spontaneous virtue 
for a stern and holy sense of duty and responsibility. 

But now, as always, Christianity has most to fear from 
those whose orthodoxy is unquestionable. Its authorized 
or self-constituted champions inflict the deepest wounds — 
for those wounds are inflicted in the house of its friends. 
Open enemies it can overpower, or defy — but treacherous 
watchmen surrender its strongholds, and leave it no hope 
but in God. As treason, in one who has proclaimed him- 
self a patriot, makes patriotism itself suspected, so recre- 
ancy in life or manners, on the part of those who have 
been put in trust of the Gospel, causes the very Gospel 
itself to be scorned and profaned. Hardly less mischief is 
sometimes done through misjudgment, and a reckless de- 
fence. When any cause is upheld by fallacious arguments, 
or incorrect statements, we are not to wonder that the fault 
should be attributed, not to the incompetency of the advo- 
cate, but to the essential weakness of the position he holds. 
Much of the same evil results from violence or insolence 
in debate, on the part of those, who profess principles which 
ought to soften the asperity and rebuke the arrogancy of the 
natural heart. When they can so far forget the proprieties 
of debate as to substitute coarse personalities for calm and 
weighty argument, the conclusion is drawn unjustly, but 



INTRODUCTION. 



27 



naturally, not that they are mere pretenders to an influ- 
ence which is real and most benign, but that the influence 
itself is a chimera. Against such an inference, so injurious, 
and often so fatal, the Gospel ought to be protected. They 
who are looked to as its special expounders and guardians, 
cannot overrate the importance of recommending it by a life 
beyond reproach, and by arguments that may defy scrutiny. 
This is always necessary — it is rarely more so than now. 
Those who hold essential error in our time, are often dis- 
tinguished by elegant accomplishments and by exemplary 
lives. They devote themselves to works of charity. They 
win respect by amiable manners and rational tastes ; they 
compass sea and land to augment the treasures of science, 
and swell the triumphs of civilization. Let it not be said 
that with all their unbelief, they merit more esteem than 
the defenders of the faith, or that their learning or their 
logic is more than a match for ours who are under vows 
the most solemn, to be ready "with all faithful diligence" 
"by doctrine and by life" to refute all erroneous and strange 
teaching contrary to God's word. 

2. The Speculative Problem. 

In turning from Apologetics as a branch of Practical 
Divinity, to its place in a system of Scientific or Speculative 
Theology, we encounter at once some of the profoundest 
difficulties in Metaphysical Philosophy. "Whether there is 
a proper scientific basis for any of our knowledge, or whe- 
ther, in its first principles, it be not essentially empirical ; 
whether our subjective impressions are in any case a 
rigorous guarantee for our objective beliefs ; whether our 
faith, for example, in the existence of the external world is 
capable of being vindicated by an indisputable logic, and if 
so, in what way ; these are questions which have divided phi- 
losophers almost from the time that abstract speculation 



28 



INTRODUCTION. 



first began. If such questions have been mooted in respect 
to material and visible objects, we need not wonder that 
they have been urged still more in respect to invisible 
realities ; such as Beauty, Goodness, Immortality, and God. 
The first principles of Ethics, Esthetics, and Religion, 
stand on nearly the same ground as the primary questions 
touching our own existence and the existence of the world 
without. Let the ultimate reason be stated for believing 
that the book which seems tc be lying before me is more than 
a phantasm, that it has objective reality, and a position, 
form, and size, such as my senses indicate ; — let the ground 
of this belief, I say, be stated formally by any school in 
philosophy, and there are other schools ready to contest 
that ground. One class of thinkers propose to raise the 
whole fabric of human science upon- the basis of rigorous 
demonstration, thus giving to physical, psychological, ethi- 
cal, and theological beliefs, the same character as that which 
belongs to mathematical truths. Another class appeal for 
the first principles of all knowledge, whether it pertain to 
things material or things spiritual, to primordial concep- 
tions and intuitive beliefs, which are to be assumed as 
above question and incapable of demonstration. A third 
undertake to evolve these conceptions and beliefs, by a 
process of extended reasoning from a few simple facts given 
in sensation and experience. 

The difference here is not in respect to the practical 
regard which should be given to the various beliefs, which 
are all but universal among men, but in respect to their 
origin and scientific value. All admit that he would be a 
madman, who should proceed in his daily conduct on 
the principles of absolute scepticism ; who should meet 
every emergency and every incident with a negation or a 
doubt. The main controversy respects the method of lay- 
ing, for that which we are to assume as true, a proper 



INTRODUCTION. 



29 



scientific foundation; and we ought to anticipate that, in 
proportion as questions withdraw themselves from the 
sphere of our senses and of our grosser necessities, they will 
become, in the same proportion, the battle-ground of these 
disputes. They are controversies not likely to terminate 
soon. An absolute criterion of certitude, if found at all, 
must evidently be found in the constitution of the human 
mind ; but the science (psychology) which undertakes to 
unfold that constitution, is still immature. So long as this 
continues to be the case, we must reconcile ourselves to the 
same imperfections in the theory or Philosophy of Keligion 
which we find in the theories of ^Esthetics, Ethics, or Poli- 
tics. The first truths and fundamental notions which per- 
tain to each, will still vindicate their power over all minds, 
though the extent to which ideas thus held implicitly by 
all will be developed and formally maintained, must greatly 
vary. The genesis and scientific value of these fundamen- 
tal truths and notions, will still be a fruitful subject of dis- 
cussion among those who claim to be philosophical thinkers ; 
and in such discussions the sceptical mind finds abundant 
food for doubt and disbelief. The strife of pens and tongues 
which has been renewed from age to age, often with no 
conclusive result, is appealed to as evidence that all search 
for a true philosophy must be fruitless. The assurance 
too, with which dogmatism puts forth her bold assumptions, 
and the intolerance with which she pursues those who 
presume to question them, is another ground, to some 
minds, of hopeless incertitude. Add to these the absurd 
and perhaps monstrous consequences which can be shown 
to be embedded in various doctrines and systems, and we 
need not wonder that minds which depend only on logic, 
and value subtlety of reasoning more than common sense, 
come at length to have no speculative faith. They turn 
in disgust from all philosophy except as the subject of a 



50 



INTRODUCTION. 



relentless criticism, and denounce the very foundation on 
which it rests, as sand. We are to act in respect to life 
here, indeed, as if our subjective impressions had objective 
counterparts; but we are to expect no rigorous and scien- 
tific guarantee for the procedure. This is Speculative or 
Philosophical Scepticism. 

It is to be carefully distinguished from Religious Scep- 
ticism. The latter does not necessarily reject the grounds 
on which our other knowledge rests. It may merely dis- 
allow the evidence which is claimed sometimes for Revela- 
tion, sometimes for Natural Religion merely, and some- 
times for both. The Religious Sceptic may unite with the 
vast majority of mankind in accepting, on other subjects, 
the evidence of the senses, of testimony, or of reasoning ; 
and he may hold that in doing so he is open to no assault 
on speculative more than on practical grounds. The Phi- 
losophical Sceptic occupies a wholly different position. On 
the question of the validity of all human knowledge he 
boldly takes the negative, and he contends that our only 
hope of rest is to be found in abjuring all philosophy ; if 
not in renouncing, so far as we may, all faith. We are to 
surrender ourselves to current beliefs which are perhaps 
irrepressible, but we are to hold that on no subjects are 
they necessarily more than illusions; while, in matters 
pertaining to the spiritual world, they are least of all 
entitled to claim a valid science for their support. Such a 
state of mind impeaches its own capacity and the capacity 
of all men, to think and reason with any reliable accuracy. 
It even sweeps away every foundation on which it under- 
takes to erect its own pyrrhonism; for, in reaching that 
Pyrrhonism, it passes through a process of reasoning each 
step of which, on its own principles, must be worthless, and 
yet each one must be accepted, if it would give force or 
value to the conclusion in which it professes to find repose. 



INTRODUCTION. 



31 



When held, therefore, in an absolute form, Philosophical 
Scepticism stultifies itself, while it offers to the deepest 
convictions and aspirations of the soul a ruthless violence. 

Hence it is that, instead of the absolute, it generally takes 
the relative form. It assumes the principles of some reign- 
ing philosophy to be the best which the mind of man can 
reach, and then, by a process analogous to the reductio ad 
absurdum, shows that these principles mutually destroy 
each other. In proportion as such philosophy is universally 
received, whatever is fatal to it seems to be fatal to all 
speculative thinking, and thus leaves the mind a prey to 
profound distrust, In this state it sometimes takes refuge, 
as we shall see hereafter, in supernatural aid ; sometimes 
abandons itself to indifference or despair. More frequently, 
however, the hostility of the Sceptic aims not so much at 
the disparagement of all truths, as at the discrediting 
of some particular system, then in the ascendant. Is 
it one which ascribes to the senses a too exclusive agency 
in originating our knowledge, he aims to demonstrate its 
narrowness and insufficiency. Is it one which aims to 
trace that knowledge almost altogether to intuitional pro- 
cesses, he pursues it with the same unsparing criticism. 
If this criticism aims not merely to destroy error but also 
to build up truth, it may result in substituting for one phi- 
losophy its opposite, or in replacing both with a system of 
greater comprehensiveness. But if, on the other hand, the 
leading aim be destructive, the result will be a state of sus- 
pense, — mainly in respect to the system assailed, but par- 
tially also in respect to all philosophic inquiry. 

The writer then stands in such a position, that those who 
read may doubt, and he himself may not know, whether 
he does really hold the cheerless creed of the sceptic. Thus 
it is questioned whether, even in a speculative sense, Hume 
was more than a relative sceptic. He had assumed the 



32 



INTRODUCTION. 



Representative theory of Perception as the best and only 
one that philosophy could furnish. In deducing from it 
sceptical conclusions, it may merely have been his object to 
demonstrate its utter insufficiency, and to press upon phi- 
losophers the necessity of replacing it with a better. Such 
was undoubtedly its practical effect. Dr. Reid, the founder 
of what has been called the Scottish Philosophy, clearly 
saw that, in granting to Hume the first principles which 
he borrowed from the current theory of perception, it became 
impossible to withstand the sweeping conclusions of his 
scepticism. He therefore subjected those theories to a new 
and searching criticism. He demonstrated that they rested 
on mere assumptions which had been handed down from 
age to age without scrutiny, and that, when they came to 
be analyzed and compared with facts, they proved to be 
baseless dreams. He then substituted his doctrine of 
immediate instead of representative perception, and in 
doing so, cut away the foundation of the most formidable 
theory of universal disbelief which the world had seen. 

Whenever the human mind attempts to realize to itself 
a speculative science, various causes of scepticism begin at 
once to operate. In each of these attempts, men usually 
grasp some great truth, but grasp it only in one of its 
phases, and disconnected from other truths not less essential. 
They discern one great power or principle, in the mind 
considered as an instrument of cognition, but in the con- 
templation of it they become so absorbed, and perhaps so 
entranced, that they overlook some other power equally 
real and important. Hence result partial and one-sided 
systems of philosophy, which are often positive and peremp- 
tory in their tone, in proportion as they are narrow and 
exclusive in their views. Such systems cannot possibly 
exist long without arousing an antagonist philosophy. 
The controversies between the Physical and Metaphysical 



INTRODUCTION. 



83 



Eleatics ; between the followers of Aristotle and those of 
Plato; like more modern disputes between the disciples 
respectively of Leibnitz and of Locke, are specimens of what 
has transpired in every age and every land that has reached 
the reflective or philosophic steep of culture. And each 
party naturally provokes scepticism, for each exaggerates 
the extent and importance of its own principles ; each is 
relentless in its animadversions upon the rival theory; 
while both, by the violence with which they wage their 
controversies and the apparent barrenness, often, of their 
results, — suggest doubts whether all kindred inquiries be 
not destined to end in greater doubts and uncertainties. 

Thus scepticism in Philosophy, which by a logical neces- 
sity involves speculative scepticism in Theology, may often 
be traced to a Dogmatic Philosophy. It is a natural reac- 
tion from it. Go where we will in the History of Philo- 
sophy, a reactionary Disbelief presents itself ; now distrust- 
ing all knowledge, now rejecting that only which claims a 
scientific basis. Thus it was with the Vedantas in India; 
thus with Empedocles and Heraclitus in Greece, who 
recoiled from the warfare waged between the two Eleatic 
schools, and from the crude but arrogant pretensions of 
earlier sects. So also it w r as with the later sceptical school 
founded by iEnesedemus in the time of Cicero, and extend- 
ing to Sextus Empiricus, who lived in the reign of Marcus 
Aurelius. In the four great philosophic sects, Epicureans, 
Stoics, Peripatetics, and the followers of the New Academy 
— in their endless debates, apparently as fruitless as they 
were violent — this School found ample provocation for an 
active and polemic scepticism. It is the same in more 
modern times. Montaigne, Bayle, Hume, with many more, 
profess to justify their speculative doubts by the errors 
and conflicts of prevailing schools in Metaphysical Philo- 
sophy. 

5 



34 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is curious to observe the different tempers with which 
this negation of all philosophy and all science is possessed. 
In some sceptics it is essentially frivolous, making sport of 
all truth, laughing at reason, and delighting in a Rhetoric 
and a Logic which can uphold by turns, and with equal 
success, each side of a question. Such were the Sophists, 
who found in Socrates their remorseless and irresistible foe. 
In others it is a gloomy and suicidal despair, which, hope- 
less of all other resources, sets itself calmly to demonstrate 
that doubt and uncertainty represent the normal condition 
of man's soul. Such was the school of Sextus Empiricus. 
But in others it does not end in mere suspense or negation. 
It revolts against Dialectic Science, but it cannot accept 
a cheerless theory of Disbelief as the substitute. In 
renouncing Science or Philosophy in its dogmatic or dialec- 
tic forms, it has recourse now to what Heraclitus called 
" The Universal and Divine Reason $"* now to what 
Pyrrho regarded as practical and moral in opposition to that 
which is merely speculative; now to instincts and intui- 
tions which are to be regarded as the voice of the Divinity 
in our hearts ; and now to Revelation, which, being the 
Divine Word in an objective and pre-eminently authorita- 
tive form, is to be held paramount as a criterion of truth. 

In Philosophy as in Theology, Scepticism is a natural 
recoil from Dogmatism, which at one time affirms what it 
ought to prove, while at another it aspires to prove that 
which it can only affirm. It is also a natural recoil from 
Mysticism, which would dispense with proof altogether, and 
resolve all knowledge into intuitive beliefs and internal 
revelations. We are thus brought to the three grand 
systems — Dogmatism, Mysticism, and Scepticism — which 
have unfolded themselves wherever Philosophy was earnestly 
studied. These three systems represent three grand ele- 

* Whatever was universally believed, as distinguished from individual opinions. 



INTRODUCTION. 



35 



merits in the Constitution of the Human Mind, each of 
which has its legitimate sphere and office. There is in 
man, first, a disposition to believe, which, pushed to excess, 
is, in common life, credulity; in philosophy, mysticism. 
There is also a critical or logical understanding, which would 
scrutinize the grounds and reasons of our belief, and which, 
pushed beyond its appropriate province, may land us, as 
believers, in Rationalism ; as unbelievers, in universal 
Scepticism. And this holds true of Philosophy and Theo- 
logy alike. It is the work of the sober and large-minded 
thinker, so to combine these elements in the construction 
of scientific systems, that those systems shall be free alike 
from blind credulity, presumptuous rationalism, and captious 
scepticism. Thus, and thus only can we vindicate, in our 
philosophy and theology, a place for each one of these prin- 
ciples, and establish through the agency of a legitimate 
criticism, a final reconciliation between Faith and Reason. 

To effect this reconciliation, has always been an object 
among philosophers who recognised the existence, in the 
soul, of an intuitional element. It has been sought, still 
more earnestly, among those who accepted the idea of a 
supernatural and objective Revelation. The effort springs 
up inevitably under every form of Religion which claims 
to have Sacred Books, and in the Christian church it has 
taxed the powers of her noblest thinkers. It doubtless 
owes much of its difficulty to the ambiguity of the two 
principal terms employed. Where the English tongue is 
spoken, the first idea which these terms probably convey 
to most minds is, that the one refers only to such know- 
ledge as we gain through Revelation; the other only to 
that which we gain independently of it. By others fami- 
liar with the recent discoveries or pretensions of Physical 
Science, and with discrepancies alleged to exist between 
them and the teachings of Revelation, these terms will 



36 



INTRODUCTION. 



suggest only ideas connected with the adjustment of such 
discrepancies. 

In Speculative Philosophy, as we have already intimated, 
these terms are often employed to indicate the two leading 
organs which the soul naturally employs in the discovery 
and apprehension of truth. In Dogmatic Theology they 
are used to designate, on the one hand, such truths as can 
be vindicated on rational grounds, and reduced to some de- 
finite place in a system — on the other, those which have 
no guarantee at all except Revelation. In Practical Reli- 
gion, again, we use these terms to express a distinction of 
vast importance to the life and power of Christianity. It 
is, that there are truths which cannot be entirely compass- 
ed by a merely logical understanding or intuitional con- 
sciousness; for the proper apprehension of which there must 
be a special and preternatural capability, — a subjective pre- 
paration, — which, beginning in the honest and sincere heart 
of the natural man, is taught more and more by the Divine 
Spirit, till it ends in that power of discerning and relishing 
the peculiar glory of the Gospel, which characterizes the 
new man in Christ Jesus. It is evident that the respective 
functions of Faith and Science, and their essential harmony, 
will never be thoroughly established till these various 
meanings are more clearly and carefully discriminated. 

We have already expressed our conviction that the hu- 
man mind has original functions that pertain both to Faith 
and Reason, and that, as well in Philosophy as in Theology, 
there is a legitimate place for both. He who ignores wholly, 
or in great part, the sphere of the intuitional faculty, and 
attempts to establish everything by proof, is justly stigma- 
tized as a rationalist, because he charges reason with more 
than its proper share of responsibility, and offers to it an 
extravagant homage. In his blind zeal, too, he overlooks 
the fact that, in the beginning of its operations, the mind 



INTRODUCTION. 



37 



must proceed upon belief, which it accepts for the time 
merely upon the strength of intuitive impressions, but which 
it may afterwards subject to various critical or logical tests. 
On the other hand, he who appeals only, or chiefly, to in- 
stinctive convictions or spontaneous impressions, is justly 
termed a mystic, since he withholds these convictions and 
impressions from the scrutiny which is necessary, in order 
to ascertain their validity, and to discriminate those which 
are merely personal and individual from those which, in a 
more or less developed form, belong to man everywhere, 
and at all times. The rationalist, whether in Philosophy 
or in Theology, says, Understand that you may believe ; the 
mystic, on the other hand, cries out, Believe that you may 
understand* Both are right, and both wrong — right, in 
so far as they w T ould make faith and reason complemental 
each to the other ; wrong, so far as they contend that either 
is wholly paramount over or independent of its comple- 
ment. 

Philosophical Scepticism, which founds its doubts exclu- 
sively on speculative considerations, may, as we have 
said, be merely theoretical. In respect to many matters 
it must be so. In regard, for example, to the life that 
now is, no man is a practical sceptic, nor even in respect 
to the life which is to come, if his soul be suddenly 
confronted with its more awful realities. But we are far 
from intimating that speculative scepticism is therefore 
innocuous. In regard to the more spiritual truths that per- 
tain to the soul's welfare, it is easy to suppress, and, by 
degrees, almost eradicate them. The habit of doubting 
and cavilling about evidence is one, too, that soon engen- 
ders either a profane levity or a profound despondency. 
Mr. Hume's death-bed, signalized by coarse jests about the 
Styx, Charon and his boatmen, seems no unnatural conclu- 

* Crede ut intclli 'gas, —the maxim which St. Anselm professed and made 
famous in the schools, in opposition to that of Abelard,— InielUge ut credas. 



38 



INTRODUCTION. 



sion to a life so much of which bad been devoted to unset- 
tling the very foundations of all belief. Pliny the Elder 
gives utterance to the dismal sense of incertitude which 
haunted many a thoughtful mind in his day, in some such 
words as the following : " What God is, if he be distinct 
from the world, no human understanding can know. To 
suppose that such an Infinite Spirit, be it what it may,'can 
trouble itself with the miserable affairs of men, is a foolish 
fancy, proceeding from the helpless weakness of human 
nature. . . . Man is full of contradictions — full of wishes 
and desires, running into infinity, which can never be 
gratified, and his nature is a lie ; the greatest poverty 
united with the greatest pride."* 

When minds have had experience of these horrors of a 
sceptical delirium, and are brought to accept Revelation, it 
is not surprising that they often attempt to put honour upon 
it by depreciating man's unaided reason. In this way a 
peculiar modification of scepticism springs up, which works 
entirely in the interests of Eevealed Theology. It has no 
respect for Natural Religion. It pours contempt on all the 
efforts of Speculative or Metaphysical Philosophy. Even 
Physical Science it is prone to denounce, as full of unwar- 
rantable assumptions and profane self-confidence. It falls 
back entirely on authority, now that of the Church, now r 
that of the Written Word, and now that of inward Reve- 
lations, which ought, in its judgment, to supersede alike the 
dogmas of Ecclesiastical tradition and the letter of a mere 
Book-revelation. It is curious to observe how this phase 
of Philosophic Scepticism has, under two of these forms, 
found its ablest advocates among Christian Divines and 
Theologians of the most orthodox school, t In many cases, 

* Hist. Nat,, lib. II., c. 7, lib. VII., &c. 

f Wherever there are sacred books claiming to be from Heaven (as in India 
and Arabia), there we shall find a corresponding phenomenon. Thus, among 



INTRODUCTION. 



it has been tne last resource of men who had previously 
sought rest only in philosophy. Thus the great work of 
Huet,* on " The Weakness of the Human Understand- 
ing," is from the pen of one who had rested at first in the 
philosophy of Des Cartes, but had been driven by its de- 
fects to embrace the antagonist system of Gassendi. Here, 
again, he found no rest ; and at length, in his despair of 
human reason, gave himself over to the Idolatry of Reve- 
lation. It was much the same with Pascal. The sublime 
but exaggerated strains in which he expatiates upon the 
impotence of man's reason, may be traced to the discon- 
tent with which, turning from the rigorous methods of 
Geometry to the Moral Sciences, he discovered that they, 
independently of Revelation, conducted him to no demon- 
strative certainty. The same causes seem to have been at 
work in the case of Glanville, who was Court Preacher to 
Charles II., and author of the Scepsis Scientifica, or Con- 
fessed Ignorance, the Way to Science, and in that of Count 
de Maistre, who in his zeal for the Church as man's only 
authorized teacher, has proclaimed the imbecility of the 
intellect with great eloquence in his work entitled Evenings 
at St. Petersburg, &c. Thus it is, that while the disciples 
of a narrow Philosophy sometimes land in religious unbe- 
lief, the Religionist, on the other hand, is not without dan- 
ger from a species of speculative or philosophical scepticism, 
which, if it were consistent with itself, would be as fatal to 
Theology as to Philosophy. 

the most eminent of Arabian philosophers, in the eleventh century, was one 
(Al Gazel), who, after having displayed himself in the characters of a dog- 
matic philosopher and a defender of Islamism, became at last " a sceptic phi- 
losopher in the interest of Theology." In his book on the Destruction of Philo- 
sophers, he employed all the resources of dialectics to batter down all dogmatic 
systems, from whence resulted, according to him, the necessity of resorting to 
the revelations of the Koran, in order to avoid absolute scepticism. 
* Peter Daniel Huet, Bishop of A Tranches, born in Caen, 1630. 



40 



INTRODUCTION. 



For, if the human reason be indeed utterly powerless, 
how is it to distinguish a true Revelation from a spurious 
one ? How discriminate the works of Beelzebub from those 
of God ? Or, granting that we have a Revelation properly 
authenticated, how, without reason, are we to compass its 
true meaning ? The Bible contains much that is plain, but 
plain mainly because it commends itself intuitively to an 
inward witness in the soul which we call Reason. The 
Bible contains much also that is obscure, as is proved by 
the many various and contradictory interpretations which 
have been proposed. How are these obscurities to be 
cleared away, and these contradictions and variations (the 
reproach not only of Protestantism, but of all Christendom) 
— how, without the earnest, persevering, and laborious use 
of the highest as well as the lowest reason, are these to be 
reconciled ? If, instead of the Bible, we substitute the 
Church as our authoritative guide, we only complicate the 
difficulty ; for more than one Church presses forward to 
demand from us the obedience of the faith, and what but 
this same despised and outlawed reason can distinguish be- 
tween the legitimate Sovereign and the mere Pretender? 
He, then, who, in the service of Religion, proposes to bring 
dishonour on Reason as wholly imbecile and incompetent, 
pulls down the very bulwarks which he is most anxious to 
strengthen and build up. 

In matters pertaining to the soul, there is abundant need, 
no doubt, of a Revelation; and, to make that Revelation 
answer its full purpose there is need, also, of all the help 
that Reason can give us in studying its contents. The 
Bible was given to Man to be, with Nature, his Educator. 
It would build him up from weakness to strength by the 
one only way — effort — effort earnest and prolonged — effort 
that leans continually on God for efficient strength, but 
that subserves its grand end only as it enlists all the powers 



INTRODUCTION. 



41 



of the soul — Reason, Conscience, Sensibility, Will. Hence 
Revelation, like Nature and Providence, has its difficulties. 
0 the depths I is the cry that comes up from the largest and 
the most enlightened mind, when pondering over the con- 
tents of Holy Scripture. And so it will ever be. There 
is no greater or more perilous delusion than that which 
now possesses many Christians on this subject. The 
assumption — that, if a Eevelation be given at all it must 
needs be attended with certain evidence — is granted even 
by Protestants as if it expressed an incontestable truth. 
It contains the very essence of the Absolutism of Papal 
Infallibility. God has given Nature to be a Teacher, and 
that teacher at every step raises questions which it does not 
answer. At every step it plants difficulties in our path, 
and these difficulties are seen to be useful, both to our in- 
tellects and to our moral nature. In the task of clearing 
away one after another of these difficulties some of our 
highest enjoyments are found, and some of our most im- 
portant advances in speculative and practical wisdom are 
made. And shall it not be so with the greatest of all 
teachers, even Christ ? Is He to leave nothing to task our 
faith — nothing to exercise our patience as inquirers — 
nothing to discipline our humility as thinkers — nothing to 
develop and improve our investigating powers ? While 
He solves many a doubt for which Nature had no answer, 
is He to dissipate all ignorance, and invest even finite minds 
with an Infinite Wisdom ? 

Revelation does, indeed, promise rest ; but it is not the 
rest of omniscience. It is the rest of the confiding child 
reposing without fear on a Fathers wise and unalterable 
love ; it is the rest of a redeemed captive that feels the arm 
of the great Deliverer to be near, and all-sufficient for the 
remaining toils and dangers of the way to its free home. 
It is the rest of a liberated soul, that delights in beholding 
6 



42 



INTRODUCTION. 



one after another barrier of ignorance and uncertainty give 
way, as it uses faithfully the powers that have been be- 
stowed upon it. Intellectual anarchy is a characteristic of 
our times ; and it is, we firmly believe, through a proper 
acceptance of Revelation that each one is for himself to 
terminate that anarchy. Here, as elsewhere, we believe 
that Christ is the great centre of mediation, but we also 
believe that, to borrow the words of another, " it is utterly 
to mistake the true character of that reconciling power 
which lies in Christianity, to ascribe to it a purely intel- 
lectual as w r ell as moral force. Christ came not to resolve 
the enigmas of human philosophy, but to restore the har- 
mony of human life. If the Christian, therefore, finds a 
refuge in the Gospel from the oppression of those intel- 
lectual contradictions which have been in all ages the 
torture of speculation, — it is not because he is enabled to 
see with the intellectual eye more clearly than others, but 
because he is enabled to repose in the perfect peace wdiich 
flows to him from the Cross, amid all speculative difficulties 
wdiatever. We would not say with Vinet, therefore, c this 
word (the Cross) re-organizes thought and the icorld^ but 
simply this word re-organizes the world, and, through the 
practical unity which it brings, prepares the way, if not for 
speculative unity, yet for speculative submission. To pro- 
claim anything more than this is, we believe, radically to 
misrepresent the Truth, and to gainsay the most obvious 
and undeniable evidence all around us. A Christian Phi- 
losophy, — a satisfactory solution of the problems which 
meet us whenever we penetrate to the depths of Christian 
Thought, — is still notoriously a desideratum ; and if the 
traces of it may be discerned at length by the patient and 
thoughtful eye among the suggestions of a more genial, and 
reverent, and comprehensive philosophic spirit, it assuredly 



INTRODUCTION. 



43 



does not yet present itself as a clear and complete doc- 
trine."* 

3. Religious Scepticism. 

One who holds to absolute scepticism must, of course, 
maintain that the Evidences of Natural and Revealed 
Religion are essentially defective when tried by a scientific 
or strictly philosophical standard. But, as in things per- 
taining to this world, he does not allow theoretical doubts 
to interfere with practical beliefs, so it may be, and often is, 
in religious matters. Berkeley, though he denied that, on 
the principles of the philosophy then current, we had any 
proper evidence of the existence of matter, was yet a firm 
believer in Revelation. So Hume, though he went further, 
and contended that, on the same principles, we are without 
adequate proof even of our own existence, or of any truth 
whatever, still claimed to be a theist in his practical con- 
victions, and, while sitting amidst the Atheistic philosophers 
of Paris, boldly avowed his conviction that a real Atheist 
did not exist.f In truth, in asserting, on abstract grounds, 
the incompetency of human reason, the sceptic Hume and 
the extreme supernaturalist Huet or De Maistre occupy 

* North British Review, No. XLII. 

f Said Diderot to Sir Samuel Romilly, " Je vous dirai un trait de lui, mais il 
vous sera un peu scandaleux peut-etre, car vous Anglais vous croyez unpeu en 
Dieu ; pour nous autres nous n'y croyons gueres. Hume dina avec une grande 
compagnie chez le Baron D'Holbach. II etait assis a c6te du Baron ; on parla 
de la religion naturelle : ' Pour les Athees/ disait Hume, ' je ne crois pas qu'il 
en existe ; je n'en ai jamais vu.' ' Vous avez et6 un peu malheureux/ repondit 
l'autre, ' vous voici a table avee dix-septpour la premiere fois.' " Memoirs of 
Romilly, Vol. I. p. 179. On turning to the late life of Hume by Burton (Vol. 
II. pp. 141, 451-2, &c.) the reader will see still more striking evidence to the 
same point. On one occasion Hume will be found denying that he is even a 
Deist; on another, when walking with a friend (Adam Ferguson) on a clear 
and beautiful night, suddenly stopping, looking up to the starry sky and ex- 
claiming, " 0 Adam ! can any one contemplate the wonders of that firmament 
and not believe that there is a God I" 



44 



INTRODUCTION. 



positions by no means dissimilar. Hence it is to be re- 
membered that speculative or philosophical scepticism is an 
aberration for which we are to look within as well as with- 
out the Church. 

Religious scepticism, whether founded in philosophy or 
otherwise, is of various degrees. In its lowest form, it is 
the mere negation of religious in common with all other 
belief. In its next higher form, it recognises the existence 
of a religious Power, but denies with Fatalism, its freedom, 
or with Pantheism, its personality. As Deism, it rises to 
the recognition of a personal God but rejects Revelation. 
As Supernaturalism, it accepts Revelation but professes at 
the same time profound distrust in all Indications of a Crea- 
tor which are presented by Nature or by Man. And we 
find these gradations not merely in Christian countries, but 
also among Jews, Mahommedans and Pagans. There are, 
moreover, corresponding varieties even among those who 
profess to be believers. In Judea, in the time of Christ, 
we find Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes, just as now we 
find throughout Christendom, the Orthodox or dogmatic, 
the Rationalistic or sceptical, and the Mystic or inner-light 
schools. 

Wherever a positive system of Religion — whether Chris- 
tian, Pagan or Mahommedan — exists and gradually shapes 
itself into a dogmatic or systematic form, there the innate 
tendencies of the human mind to critical inquiry will 
develop a certain amount of objection and unbelief. If 
the system as held by its disciples is intolerant of dissent, 
the scepticism will be concealed; but in the degrading 
necessity which compels silence, it often finds a reason for 
increased strength and virulence. We hardly read of such 
a thing as avowed religious scepticism in Christendom 
during the Middle Ages ; and yet we know enough of the 
activity of the human mind in speculative inquiries during 



INTRODUCTION. 



45 



a part of that time, and we hear enough now of Italian and 
Spanish Ecclesiastics who are Deists or Atheists at heart, 
to be assured that it existed even then in no scanty mea- 
sure. When the Revival of Letters and the Reformation 
of the 16th Century had given back intellectual freedom to 
the Christians of Europe, the open avowal of doubts in 
respect to Religion was to be expected. The Scholastic 
Philosophy had accepted without question certain first 
principles in Religion, on the simple dictum of the Church. 
When the authority of that dictum came to be rejected, 
many minds would reject at the same time most of the 
beliefs which it enjoined. Others reach religious scepticism 
at all periods, by the abuse of Metaphysical Speculations. 
Others embrace it as a recoil from some narrow system of 
theology, which, in its unrelenting austerity, ignores some 
of the noblest powers and gentlest instincts of our nature. 
Others abjure all forms of Christianity, because Christianity 
becomes associated in their minds with the ferocious in- 
tolerance with which those who profess special zeal for 
Christ or his Church, trample down all freedom of worship 
or thought. Others again become disgusted with the end- 
less schisms, debates and oppositions of those who profess 
a Religion of peace and good-will; and others, as before 
the French Revolution, reject the reigning faith in con- 
sequence of the immorality of the Clergy. General licen- 
tiousness of manners, also, naturally favours infidelity, 
because men steeped in immorality feel that they need 
it as a shelter against the misgivings and protests of Con- 
science, which otherwise would poison their pleasures. To 
conclude, we must remember that a large portion of the 
Religious Unbelief of any one time or place is inherited 
from the past. This is the case with the French Infidelity 
of our day, which is but a sad legacy from a former genera- 
tion — the result, for the most part, of early prejudices and 



46 



INTRODUCTION. 



associations. Whoever travels for a few hours with a 
Frenchman, who represents the average opinion and feeling 
of France, will see that the nation at large have hardly 
heard of Christianity, except as a superstition which merits 
consideration only from priests and women. 

We see, then, why it is that Religious scepticism holds 
a place in the Literature of Christian nations, since the 
lGth century, altogether more prominent than before. 
We also see why in Protestant countries, practising the 
toleration which their principles compel them to profess, 
Infidelity declares itself much more frankly and openl}' 
than in countries where intolerance is held to be a duty. 
There is little doubt that the last two centuries have given 
birth, in England and in this country, to more anti-christian 
Literature, than had appeared in all Christendom previously 
for thrice that time. It is hardly to be regretted. An 
open is better than a secret enemy ; a foe without the citadel 
is to be preferred to a traitor within it. Christianity 
always gains ultimately from a direct assault on the ground 
of Evidence and argument. Her disciples then tax their 
energies and resources. Investigation serves the double 
purpose of reassuring her friends and disheartening her 
foes, for it discloses her own abounding resources, and the 
inherent weakness of every weapon which has, thus far, 
been formed against her. What our faith has most to dread, 
is a disguised unbelief which deals in honeyed phrases, and 
affects, in the name of Reason, to patronize the Bible. Her 
next most deadly enemy is an insidious immorality, which 
creeps in under the dishonoured names of thrift and enter- 
prise. Industry is to be honoured ; a far-reaching and 
frugal enterprise is to be held in reverence ; but alas ! for 
a land which is making haste to be rich ; which, in its 
insatiate greed, invokes the sacred names of patriotism 
and religion ; which must and will have money, not so 



INTRODUCTION. 



47 



much to hoard as to spend ; and which, that it may com- 
pass its ends, carries votes, principles, and even faith in 
God, to the shambles ! 

Thus far there is much to inspire hope. Those countries 
in which there is the most of avowed unbelief are the very 
countries in which there is most of earnest and practical 
Religious Faith. But there is enough always, in the best 
state of Christian Society, to warrant solicitude and to 
excite to increased effort. In this land our faith is assailed 
within the Church by Scepticism on one side, by Dogmatism 
and Mysticism on the other. It is also assailed still more 
by a sordid and earthly spirit which professes to despise 
enthusiasm and casts contempt on the heroic virtues. 
Beyond the great congregation of " those who profess and 
call themselves Christians" there are some who think that 
they honour Natural Science by casting dishonour on Re- 
vealed Religion. Others have brought from transatlantic 
countries the worst elements of a ferocious impiety, and 
openly profess neither to fear Gocl nor to regard man. 
There are those, again, who, in their sublimated dreams of 
man's destiny, and in their too exalted conceptions of man's 
rights, think little of our duties and responsibilities, and 
make altogether too light of the deep foundation which has 
been laid in man's soul for an active, all-pervading religious 
faith. And, finally, there are many who, in their philo- 
sophic theories, start from conceptions of the human mind 
and its capabilities, which necessarily involve self-idolatry 
and the rejection of all authoritative teaching from any 
objective source. 

In this state of things, what is our duty? What is in- 
cumbent now on all ministers, and on intelligent laymen 
who bear the name and vows of Christ? To despise 
danger is the way to make it formidable. To look down 
with supercilious contempt on an adversary, brings with it 



18 



INTRODUCTION. 



neglect of all proper precaution against his arts and his 
violence. The cause of Revelation is doubtless safe in the 
hand of God. But, to divest those who have been ex- 
pressly charged with the duty of defending it and of 
spreading its truths over the world — to divest them of all 
care and concern, and then expect that the Most High will 
be its defence, is to disregard all the lessons of experience and 
all the teachings of the Divine Word. God honours those 
who, as his stewards, are striving most earnestly to honour 
him. By neglect, at a juncture like this, we may incur, 
for our own generation, the heaviest of all penalties — in the 
loss of the Divine Presence and Benediction, and we may 
give over the fairest earthly heritage in Christendom to be 
a prey to the spoiler. Ultimately, the faith of Christ, 
however cast down, shall doubtless rise again and go forth 
to reconquer the power it may have lost, and mount up 
slowly to the dominion which might have been hers at a 
much earlier day had we been faithful. But, meanwhile, 
what triumphs will have been won by unbelief— what 
grievous wounds inflicted on the best hopes of Humanity 
for many generations — what passions left untamed — what 
vice and immorality left unopposed to carry desolation into 
unnumbered homes and hearts ! 

We have, then, in respect to the great issue between 
Faith and Unbelief, our part to act, and it behooves us to 
understand it well, and to fulfil it with a brave heart. Our 
first and most imperative duty, as we have already said, is 
to illustrate Christianity in our lives. It is a Paioer through 
which the evil in our hearts and in the world ought to be 
subdued, and the reign of truth, and holiness, and love 
made universal among men. The reality of this Power 
can become evident only through its effects on the practice 
of those who own its influence, as compared with theirs 
who own it not. No more impressive historical argument, 



INTRODUCTION. 



49 



for the Divine Origin of Christianity, can be found than 
the marvellous revolution which it wrought, at first, in the 
principles and conduct of individuals and of societies. Its 
early history is one before which sceptics and scoffers are 
dumb. Other forms of religious zeal have inspired men 
with an enthusiasm which could stand firm against perse- 
cution and death. But none, before that which the Gospel 
kindled, enabled men to rule their own spirits, to triumph 
over carnal appetite, to rise superior to hatred, envy, and 
malice, to burn with an all-comprehending love for men, to 
attain to a true meekness and humility, and to reach the 
highest eminences of personal sanctity before God, without 
one touch of spiritual pride or self-sufficiency. In making 
common such transformations as was wrought on Saul of 
Tarsus, the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified put to 
silence the foolishness of gainsaying men, and wrung from 
multitudes the exclamation, toe ivill go with you, for God is 
with you of a truth. That renewing and transforming power, 
then, has only to be demonstrated now ; men have only to 
see beyond perad venture that the Faith of Christ is a living 
spring from which all that is amiable, lovely, and of 
good report, wells out — a force which impels all on whom 
it acts to do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with 
God ; and forthwith they shall yield to it the homage of 
their hearts. They shall not ask whether that Gospel 
which we offer them is from Heaven or of men. Gladly, 
eagerly they shall press towards its waters of life, and 
drink that they may thirst no more. Here, then, is our 
grandest need — a new baptism for the members and minis- 
ters of Christ, that they may be quickened to a devoted- 
ness in the performance of every good work, which shall 
leave no room for doubt whether they walk after the flesh 
or after the Spirit. 

Our next need is a more thorough study of the Evidences 
7 



50 



INTRODUCTION. 



of Keligion in the light of existing facts and necessities. 
The progress of Natural Science has supplied us with new 
materials for the arguments of Natural Theology. Even 
the argument for Design, which, in this branch of Apolo- 
getics, has been most largely developed, needs, in its con- 
nexion with Physiology, to be amended and enlarged. A 
new principle has been unfolded in the kingdoms of organic 
nature, under the name of Homology, which reveals de- 
signs of a broader kind than ordinary adaptations, and 
which needs to be kept steadily in view in reconstructing 
the doctrines of Teleology. Those doctrines need, also, to 
be extended by drawing more largely on the Psychological 
and Ethical departments of our own nature, and by an 
ampler and more searching review of the course of Human 
History. They need, also, to have added to them those 
evidences for the Divine Existence and Character which are 
furnished in the primordial conceptions and unalterable 
moral convictions of our race. We owe, moreover, to this 
branch of the Evidences a clearer apprehension of the ob- 
jections started by modern unbelief, and a more full and 
precise refutation of them. 

The Evidences in favour of Revealed Religion, as con- 
tained in the Old and New Testaments, have been discussed 
with surpassing power and ability within the last two cen- 
turies. Such books as Butler's Analogy, Clark's Natural 
and Revealed Religion, Lardner's Credibility, and Paley's 
Evidences, never become obsolete. But we must consider 
that the Internal Evidences of Christianity have never 
yet been largely and thoroughly discussed in the light of 
Psychology. We must also consider that historical criticism, 
researches in Geology, Ethnology and Archaeology, and a 
rigorous exegesis, have raised questions peculiar to our own 
time — questions which are not to be disposed of by a sneer 
or a denunciation. We must remember, too, that it is not 



INTRODUCTION. 



51 



every one who speaks or writes on Christianity that is quite 
competent to deal with these questions. The cavils and 
criticisms even of able and learned men are sometimes ex- 
tremely shallow. But, in other cases, they are the result 
of actual difficulties which are permitted by the Author of 
Revelation to try our faith, and stimulate our researches 
and reflections. They demand, therefore, a thorough, 
manly treatment. They deserve to be approached with 
the utmost calmness and patience, — in no spirit of appre- 
hension, but with a profound confidence, that, like a thou- 
sand difficulties which have preceded them, they are 
destined to disappear before resolute inquiry. All past ex- 
perience proclaims that the authority of the Bible is safe. 
Science has been invoked, over and over again, to convict 
it of anachronisms, and of being false to nature. The ap- 
peal has been made to wear a still more forbidding aspect, 
through the tenacity with which believers have insisted on 
current but unauthorized interpretations of Scripture. But 
the result thus far has been invariable. It has rebuked 
alike the scientific sciolist and the biblical sciolist. The 
one has been taught that his crude generalizations are not 
always, or even generally truth. The other has learned 
that his renderings of obscure passages, and his inferences 
from incidental hints, are not necessarily an expression of 
the mind of the Spirit. It would be well if the inquirers 
of our time would learn wisdom from all this dear-bought 
experience. It would protect the friends of the Bible from 
prematurely pledging themselves to views as Divine which 
are merely human. It would save the votaries of science 
and erudition from unwarrantably assailing God's Word 
with speculations about His works, which time and inquiry 
soon brand as puerilities. There is, even now, between phi- 
losophers on the one hand, and theologians on the other, 
an acrimony which is wholly unnecessary, and which can 



5 2 I N T II 0 D U C T 1 0 X. 

only do mischief. It disturbs the serenity which is neces- 
sary to the acquisition of truth. It tends to induce an 
estrangement which ought to be deplored by every friend 
of Religion and of Learning. The Revelation made through 
Nature and Man cannot be really at war with that which 
the same Infinite Intelligence has made through Scripture. 
To have the Students, then, of these two Revelations ar- 
rayed against each other, and bent upon extracting from 
them opposite and contradictory readings, is only condemn- 
ing themselves to disgrace and disappointment. It is to 
obstruct, in the most direct and effectual manner, the very 
work to which they profess to have devoted themselves. 

Dr. Wichern, at one of the meetings in behalf of the Inner 
Mission in Germany, declared that the friends of the Bible 
and of a high spiritual piety, had all the Science, Art, and 
Literature of the Empire against them. It was an exaggera- 
tion natural to an earnest mind, bent on rousing itself and 
others to a just comprehension of their duty and responsi- 
bility. It is, happily, less true of Germany now than it was 
when he gave utterance to the remark. But it does apply 
to that land to a degree which is truly appalling, though 
we firmly believe that its propriety is daily becoming less. 
Let it never be the reproach of the land in which we live. 
Nothing could well bode worse for a nation of readers like 
ours, stimulated by their institutions and their material 
position to an intense activity, than to have its cultivated 
intelligence at war with its piety. Religion hails learning 
and intellectual force as her best earthly allies. When she 
parts with them she not only parts with her main arms 
for defence and aggression, but she condemns herself, almost 
inevitably, to be the prey of superstition and fanaticism. 
Such divorce, too, is full of peril for Science and Literature. 
Neither of them pursues its work well and wisely, unless 
its love of truth is purified by a Divine Wisdom and 



INTRODUCTION. 



53 



exalted by a Divine Faith. He who begins any work of 
inquiry, fearing to find the footsteps of God and loathing 
the offence of the Cross, has not a soul opened as it should 
be, to the light. Even when he is looking only after 
natural truth or human lore, he is often in the sad condi- 
tion of those who, seeing, see not; who have ears, but 
hear not ; and hearts, but understand not. 

It is hardly to be hoped that these lines will be read by 
those who are pursuing scientific researches, under the 
influence of sentiments unfriendly to Revelation. If they 
are, it would be presumption to expect that such minds 
would be greatly moved by them. Yet we may venture 
to suggest that, even where this hostility to Revelation 
does exist, it can rarely promote the interests of Science 
to obtrude it into discussions, which ought to be kept 
strictly to their object. If, for example, the unity of 
the human race be a delusion, it can be exposed by the 
appropriate evidence. To adjourn the question from the 
bar of nature to that of Biblical learning, and then disfigure 
the debate with flippant sneers at the superstition and 
ignorance of those who reverence the Scriptures, is to lose 
sight of the very object professed, while it raises passions 
wholly incompatible with the rapid advancement of truth. 
This course is not confined to the enemies of Revelation. 
Its friends, unhappily, sometimes adopt a corresponding 
course ; and the inevitable consequence is that they dis- 
credit the Bible, while they obstruct the progress of calm 
and rigorous inquiry. We must confess, however, that we 
have never, in the whole extent of our reading, met anything 
which, in this respect, is so offensive to good taste and to 
the first principles of Inductive Philosophy, as the elaborate 
work recently given to the world under the title of Types 
of Mankind. Written under the influence of avowed pre- 
judices against certain races of men, and descending to the 



54 INTRODUCTIO N. 

use of caricature in order to bring them into disrepute, it 
stops at hardly anything which can cast reproach on Scrip- 
ture. No jests are too coarse, no revilings too bitter or 
contemptuous, no special pleading too perverse. It is mourn- 
ful to find that such names as those of Morton and 
Agassiz are destined to go down to posterity, associated 
with such unseemly exhibitions of spite and intolerance. 
A cenotaph to Morton, one of the calmest and most dig- 
nified philosophers that any age or country has seen, should 
be stained by no scurrility, defamed by no violence. It is 
an insult to his memory to suppose that he could have 
desired his unpublished writings to be given to the world, 
in close connexion with an attack on the Bible, the ma- 
levolence of which is only equalled by its impotence. 

Let no such example be followed. It is undoubtedly 
provocative in its influence, and was, we fear, intended to 
be so. But truth could gain nothing from retaliation, 
while decency and charity would lose much. If the Bible 
is to be assailed in this spirit by men of science, its friends 
have only to be patient. But we hope better things. We 
much mistake the disposition of the ablest representatives 
of Physical Science, on both sides of the Atlantic, if it be 
not more penetrated with religious convictions at this time 
than it w T as fifty years since. Many of them are more 
than ever satisfied that such convictions are an essential 
auxiliary and a crowning grace to their work. But they 
ask that issues which are merely scientific should not be 
obscured and complicated with considerations that are 
wholly extrinsic, and that only tend to rouse angry pas- 
sions. And in this they are right. It is wholly to mis- 
conceive the nature and object of the Bible, as we think, 
to offer it as an arbiter in controversies which are properly 
physical. It exhibits nature as it exhibits man — not in 
the abstract, but in the concrete — not with the precision 



INTRODUCTION. 



5o 



of science, but with the fulness, freshness and force, which 
best commend it to the business and bosoms of men ; and 
it is thus most admirably fitted not merely to inform the 
understanding, but also to exalt the imagination, to fire 
the affections, and to constrain the will. To these, the 
highest purposes of our existence, let it be held sacred. 



%\t 5PJil0SDp|j of Religion. 




BY REV. ABEAM N. LITTLEJOHN, 

RECTOR OF 3T. PAULS CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, OONN, 



8 



r. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

Thy word is truth.''' St. Joex, xtii: 17. 

THE Philosophy of Religion, as a whole, is not so much 
one theme as the verbal enclosure of many. Our aim 
will be accomplished if we shall succeed in handling some 
one of these with even partial thoroughness. The Philoso- 
phy of Religion, strictly defined, signifies neither the general 
relation of speculative thought to religion, nor the more 
particular one of reason to revelation : nor yet does it re- 
quire us to search after that form and style of philosophy 
which most nearly accords with religion. Rather would it 
seem to invite an effort so to unfold and exhibit the structure 
and powers of religion as to elucidate its fitness to the end 
for which it claims to work. 

The philosophy of a system commonly falls under three 
divisions : 1st, an inquiry into its structure or organization ; 
2d, an inquiry into the mode by which such structure or 
organization manifests itself ; and 3d, an inquiry into its 
adaptation to the end for which it was instituted. Thus, with 
regard to the external world, we ask, first, what it is, next, 
•how it works, and, lastly, for what it works, and whether 
it is likely to answer the purpose for which it was created. 
Each inquiry is quite independent of the others, and yet 
taken together, they cover the whole ground which a phi- 
losophy of nature can legitimately claim. Now it is under 
one or the other of these three forms of investigation, that 

(59) 



60 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



the Philosophy of Religion must be treated. We may ex- 
amine the structure of revealed religion as a spiritual or- 
ganism : and this would lead us to inspect its several parts 
and the law of their combination ; to ask, for example, 
whether an external revelation is possible ; and if so, in 
virtue of what attributes in its author, and what capacities 
in man its recipient. Or, omitting the structure, we might 
inquire into the method of its operation on the human heart ; 
and this would suggest questions on the theory of grace 
as a supernatural influence, and on the condition of the soul 
as demanding such an aid. Or, again, we might seek after 
the tokens which religion furnishes of its suitableness to 
the being whom it labours to redeem and to regenerate. 
These several inquiries, fully carried out, would exhaust the 
Philosophy of Religion. 

Now, as the limits of a single discourse forbid our attempt- 
ing to pursue more than one of these, we shall take the 
last as the subject of present remark. And we clo so for 
the reason that the other lines of thought stretch necessarily 
into the region of metaphysical discussion. Still we would 
not intimate that they are less important than the one we 
propose to follow, or that they less deserve to be wrought 
out. Indeed, questions of the weightiest character are con- 
cerned in their determination. The doctrine of inspiration, 
philosophically examined, leads of necessity to an inquiry 
into the relation of the subjective to the objective — of what 
is in man to what is without him — of the internal faculty 
to the external truth : an inquiry lying at the root of the 
most obscure and knotty problem in metaphysical science. 
Necessary as such an examination may be, and properly as 
it comes within the scope of our subject, it is too subtle and 
intricate, and, except we were to follow a process at once 
tedious and technical, promising too little tangible fruit to 
be introduced on an occasion like this. We prefer, there- 



L I T T L E J 0 II N. 



61 



fore, instead of examining the abstract rationality of the 
structure and method of Christianity, to unfold its suitable- 
ness to the end for which it professes to work. The ques- 
tion of adaptation is always a palpable one, and leads to 
results immediately appreciable. 

It will be our purpose, then, to demonstrate the general 
fitness of Christianity to its end, by demonstrating that fit- 
ness in three most essential particulars. We shall endeavour 
to show, 1st, its adaptation to bring man under its power ; 
2d, its adaptation to keep him there, not only as an indivi- 
dual, but as a race ; and, 3d, its adaptation to elevate and 
transform his whole nature. 

And we would so far anticipate our remarks as to observe 
that the leading inference we wish to draw from the argu- 
ment is this, that, inasmuch as it is granted that such a 
regeneration of the ruined nature of man as Christianity 
proposes can be accomplished by no human or earthly 
means, therefore, if Christianity demonstrates its power to 
accomplish such a result, it may justly claim not only a 
single supernatural element in its structure, but a divine 
origin for its whole system as well in its institutional, as in 
its doctrinal and preceptive, character. We may saj T more- 
over, that we have no hope to be able to elaborate any new 
evidence. Our utmost wish is to uncover and brighten up, 
by the attrition of analysis and illustration, some links in 
that indestructible chain of proofs which binds our Holy 
Faith, at once and immortally, to the throne of God and 
to the destiny of man. 

The first point, then, to which we invite attention, is 
the adaptation of the Christian religion to bring man under 
its influence. The Christian religion finds man its natural 
enemy, and, to reach his character, it has to deal with him 
as one capable of resistance. Now, to overcome positive hos- 
tility, and to secure, in its place, and, in such a creature as 



62 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



man, an equally positive and voluntary obedience, is a task 
from which any system less than divine might well shrink. 
Christianity in its conquest of human nature might have 
opposed one kind of force to another, and have presented 
itself exclusively in an aspect which is now only one among 
many. It might have come as a message offering only its 
own intrinsic authority, and uttered as a naked command- 
ment. It might have addressed the being whom it would 
save only as the fiat of a supreme will addresses an inferior- 
will. But this it has not chosen to do. Without bating 
its imperative tone as a commandment, it offers itself as a 
system challenging the assent of the human understanding, 
and, as a form of truth, asserting its power to reach the 
heart through the intelligent convictions of the reason. 
Though in its heights and depths a mystery, yet it scorns 
to plant itself on mere credulity or passive acquiescence : 
and while it calls for faith, it is a faith allied to and sup- 
ported by conscious thought. In fine, its formula is not 
only " thou shalt not," as speaking to the will ; but, " come 
let us reason together," as addressed to the intellect.. Such 
being its character, it aims to bring man under its influence, 
1st, by moving his will through the preventing grace of 
the Holy Spirit, thus disposing him to a voluntary recipi- 
ency of the truth ; 2d, by convincing his understanding 
through the instrumentality of evidence — thus adding the 
sanctions of reason to the motions of an external spiritual 
power. 

In the further discussion of this point, we shall confine 
ourselves to the mechanism of Christian evidence as adapted 
to satisfy every rational expectation of man, and to convince 
him of his obligation to accept the Gospel as a mode of 
belief and as a rule of life. In pursuance of this end, we 
shall note the quality and variety of Christian evidence. 

And, first, the quality or kind. It is w r ell known that 



LITTLEJOIIN. 



61 



the evidence which Christianity offers, rests on probability, 
not demonstration ; and it is sometimes matter of complaint 
that it is so. It is urged that on a theme of such absorbing 
interest the proof should be so conclusive as to leave no 
room for doubt : whereas, in this case, it is claimed that 
the proof is such that it ma}' be rejected even after fair 
examination. Still, the evidence offered is, on all sides, 
regarded as possessed of more than ordinary cogency ; and, 
on a subject involving a lower claim, as amply sufficient. 
Now there are three considerations on this point which should 
ever be vividly and fully before the mind. But unfortu- 
nately it is just these three that the objectors to the valid- 
ity of Christian evidence always forget, and forgetting, arrive 
necessarily at the most illogical as well as perilous conclu- 
sions. The considerations to which we refer are these : 1st, 
that none other than probable evidence could be had or 
given for a spiritual system like that of Christianity, com- 
posed, as it is, of appeals to the moral rather than the 
intellectual nature of man ; of truths which the awakened 
conscience can alone properly authenticate, and of myste- 
ries which lie beyond the range of the understanding ; 2d, 
that absolute certainty of proof would be incompatible with 
the probationary character of the present life of man. 

It would be absurd to tie up a free agent to an absolute 
demonstration on a subject involving the settlement of his 
moral character. It would be quite as much in place to 
urge the force of strictly moral proof in the solution of a 
geometrical theorem. On all moral subjects where the will 
must act, the only appropriate evidence is that which leaves 
open a broad margin for the play of that faculty. Its free- 
dom forbids constraint, and to leave that freedom untram- 
melled, the proof offered must be such as to be capable of 
denial. The conclusions of the rational faculty are but so 
man} T intellectual motives presented to the will to aid it in 



64 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



its decisions. If these conclusions be demonstrative rather 
than probable, they exclude the possibility of choice, and 
hence leave the will or moral nature nothing to do. But to 
that nature Christianity appeals, and the proof it offers to 
the understanding is given to assist the will in choosing, 
not to deprive it of choice; and therefore that proof must 
rest on probability, not demonstrative certainty. 

The 3d consideration referred to as usually forgotten by 
sceptics, is, that demonstrative proof, though it could be 
had, would not be so absolutely satisfactory as they sup- 
pose. Consciousness is surer than demonstration, for it fur- 
nishes the axioms on which every demonstrative process ne- 
cessarily rests. And wherever the two come into collision, 
we uniformly prefer the witness of consciousness to that of 
demonstration. We are taught, for instance, on the autho- 
rity of positive demonstration, that a polygon with an inde- 
finite number of sides is exactly coincident with an inscribed 
or circumscribed circle. Now consciousness laughs at such 
a result. We do not believe such a mathematical fiction 
any more because dressed up in lines, figures, and formulas, 
for it contradicts an intuitive conviction of the mind. 
But though demonstrative evidence were all that some sup- 
pose, it would, as already observed, be as much out of place 
in the sphere of moral conduct and spiritual determinations 
as mere probability would be in that of exact science. 

It is too generally forgotten by the assailants of Christianity 
that the questions which it proposes to man, in the way of its 
own authentication, are in no respect different in nature from 
those which he is called to decide every day of his life. The 
historian cannot write a page, the advocate cannot plead a 
case, nor can judges and courts of law adjudicate upon a dis- 
puted claim, without meeting just such questions. They are 
questions into the decision of which other ingredients besides 
evidence have a chance to enter. Interest may blind, passion 



LITTLEJOHN. 



65 



may warp, wickedness may utterly vitiate the mental pro- 
cess which they demand. They are questions such as these : 
" Whether a certain amount and complexity of testimony 
are likely to be false : whether it is likely that not one, but 
a number of men, would endure disgrace and martyrdom 
in support of an unprofitable lie : whether such a scheme 
as that of Christianity is likely to have been the production 
of unlettered peasants : whether anything so sublime was 
to be expected from fools, or anything so holy from knaves : 
whether illiterate fraud was likely to be equal to such a 
stupendous and symmetrical fabrication: whether infinite 
artifice may be expected from ignorance, or a perfectly na- 
tural and successful assumption of truth from imposture."* 
Now, on issues like these, were they submitted to a court 
of law, there is not an intelligent judge or respectable jury 
in the land who would not be ready to render a verdict 
without leaving their seats. The probabilities of the case 
are overwhelming ; and, were it not that infidelity actually 
exists among us, we might suppose that no sane mind 
could, for a moment, resist their force. But alas ! when 
you throw into the scale a bad heart, there is no telling 
what amount of evidence will give truth an abiding hold 
on the intellect and the conscience. 

For this reason we regard infidelity not so much as a 
conviction to be argued against, as a sin to be denounced. 
It is an exhalation from a moral miasma. Its power of 
diffusion lies in its power of appeal to the very distemper 
of soul out of which it springs. It feeds on the principle 
that produces it. Consistencies, either moral or logical, it 
has none. What seem such are but the distortions of right 
reason. The few sparks floating over its darkness only 
number its thefts from the flaming altars of Christianity. 
We may conclude on this branch of our subject with the 

* Rogers's Essays. 

9 



Go 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



suggestive aphorism of Pascal, " God has afforded sufficient 
light to those who wish to see, and left sufficient obscurity 
to perplex those who love the darkness." And this, we add, 
is the only kind and degree of light that God could give, 
and at the same time respect the freedom and anticipate 
the voluntary worship of man ; and here it is that we dis- 
cover the admirable adaptation of Christian evidence to 
bring him under the power of the Gospel. 

But this conviction will be strengthened if we further- 
more consider the variety which characterizes that evidence. 
Christian evidence is nearly as various as the sources of 
certainty in human knowledge. These sources are com- 
monly reckoned to be consciousness, reasoning, and exter- 
nal testimony. Now, on most subjects, the authority of 
any one of these, clearly expressed, is deemed sufficient to 
establish credibility. Usually men are satisfied with the 
voice of consciousness, or with the logical result of a course 
of reasoning; but when to both these are united the affir- 
mation of the senses and the seals of external testimony, to 
doubt is considered absurd. But it is just such a union of 
separate authorities, each conclusive in its own sphere, 
that Christianity presents to the human mind to certify its 
heavenly origin. Indifferent as to where the proof begins, 
it is willing to appear before any of these tribunals, and is 
equally ready to appeal first to external testimony, or to 
consciousness, or to the senses, or to reasoning, and to vin- 
dicate its pretensions on any or on all these grounds. It calls 
upon consciousness, and that informs us that Christianity 
harmonizes with its intuitive convictions, and uncovers to 
the light its profoundest depths. It calls upon the under- 
standing — the faculty of formal argumentation — and that 
testifies to the logical congruity of its parts, as well as to 
the antecedent probability of its structure and mission. It 
calls upon analogy: that principle which carries us around 



LITTLE JOHN. 



(37 



the many-sided majesty and power of God. And it assures 
us that the Christian religion is the culmination of that 
wisdom whose lower forms are seen in all the complicated 
arrangements of matter and spirit. And, with the same 
confidence, it enters the domain of history, and challenges 
the sharpest art of scepticism to detect a flaw in its claim 
as the supreme fact and controlling force of the world's 
record. And then, to all this variety of appeal, Christianity 
superadds the visible sanction of miracles, and the most 
startling verifications of prophecy. 

Thus does our holy faith answer the highest conditions 
of certainty in human knowledge ; covering at once, and 
with a sublime fulness, the whole ground of consciousness, 
analogy, logic, and history. Thus does the Christian reli- 
gion, by the quality and variety of the evidence it offers — a 
quality fitted to a being possessed of freedom and set upon 
a career of trial — a variety so rich as to satisfy every de- 
mand of the intellect — prove its ability to bring under its 
power the whole nature of man. By these, moreover, does 
it assert its profound relationship to human intelligence, 
and, generally, the absolute rationality of its structure and 
method of operation ; and, doing this, answers, from the 
sphere of action rather than that of abstract thought, the 
leading question proposed by the Philosophy of Religion. 

We now proceed to the second branch of our argument, 
which was to show that Christianity is adapted not only 
to bring man under its influence, but to keep him there, 
both as an individual and as a race. It is easy to conceive 
how a system of thought or discipline might by authority, 
or tradition, or naked force, deeply affect the character of 
man, and yet be unable to retain him permanently in its 
grasp ; and it is equally easy to see how a system might take 
hold of the individual, and yet be impotent to perpetuate 
its hold on the race. Hence it is of some importance to 



QH THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

note the fitness of Christianity in this particular. We have 
not to ask whether Christianity can do this, for the expe- 
rience of nearly nineteen centuries has made such a ques- 
tion needless. We have only to inquire how it does it — in 
virtue of what functions and properties. And we may re- 
mark that in no other aspect does it tower so loftily above 
all schemes and devices of the world for a similar end ; in 
none is the hand of God so visibly made bare as its author 
and finisher. Who can resist the conclusion to which so 
many other considerations point, when he sees every other 
mode of culture — every other plan for elevating our race 
— sharing the vicissitudes of mankind, decaying as they 
decay, and dying as they die : while he sees this system of 
faith and discipline perpetually renewing its youth, and 
with it the youth of the race, amid the ruins of nations and 
the ashes of buried civilizations — dealing with change in 
all its shapes and issues, itself unchanged — mating with 
earthly corruption, itself without soil or blemish — feeding 
our wasted arteries with life, itself unexhausted — kindling 
on the graves of empire the flame of a personal immortality, 
and stamping the symbols of hope on human despair as it 
crawls away from battle-fields and scenes of prostrate 
liberty and vanquished knowledge — we say who that sees 
this (and to see it we have only to look about us), can resist 
the conclusion that it was the Ruler of heaven and earth, 
and He only, that wove the sinews and knit the joints of 
such a scheme of faith and discipline ? If He did not, then 
let it be told who did. Let the inferior intelligence, the 
lower force, be named, that has so arched the ages with 
glory, and spread over human graves, and toils, and woes, 
such a bow of promise. Let the builder of such a structure 
come forth and take the crown, and accept the love and 
adoration of uncounted millions of beneficiaries. 

But if Christianity so grasps the human race, and so in- 
terweaves itself as a disciplinary power with the whole 



\ 



LITTLEJOHN. 



69 



series of human generations ; in virtue of what attributes 
and functions does it do it ? We say then, first, that it is 
able to do this work because of the form it assumes when 
taken into the soul as a personal attribute. It then passes 
into the form of a regenerating and sanctifying power — a 
form which instinctively guards itself from corruption, and 
carefully transmits its own peculiar type. It neither parts 
with anything of its own, nor accepts anything not its 
own, but goes on from heart to heart, and from age to age, 
unaltered and unalterable. Christianity, when taken into 
the soul as a personal experience, is neither a sentiment, 
nor a knowledge, nor a belief only, but essentially an act, 
an energy, a force ; and hence, as distinguished from mere 
feeling, or knowing, or believing, requires of the soul the 
union of its inward states and tempers with outward con- 
duct, or, in other words, the blending of the contemplative 
with the active, the abstract with the practical, the spiritual 
with the visible. Now from the disturbance, or rather 
rupture, of the relations which Christianity has established 
between these issues of the soul and the world of positive 
action, have sprung the worst assailants of the Gospel life. 
We refer to superstition, quietism, and fanaticism. " To 
rely on outward acts or outward rites, or things severed 
from the inward and spiritual reality, is superstition, which 
is the idolatry of the senses. To trust to the inward and 
spiritual sundered from action is quietism, which is the 
idolatry of the intellect, giving us meditations for charities, 
and dreams for virtues. While, on the other hand, to 
assume the feelings as the true and only exponents of spi- 
ritual realities, is fanaticism, the idolatry of inward frames 
and tempers."* Superstition leaves us only the skeleton 
of religion, quietism thins it away to a shadow, fanaticism 
burns it to ashes. 

* Co'eridge's " Scriptural Character of the Church of England." 



70 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



Now behold how admirably the Gospel life maintains its 
equipoise against these disturbing forces. It binds together, 
as mutual aids and correctives, the outward and the inward, 
the external rite or action with the spiritual frame. Ever 
pointing to a hidden power beneath all its visibilities of 
administration, it also manifests itself through, and de- 
mands the use of, symbols, services, and sacraments. It 
saves itself from evaporating into quietism or fanaticism, 
by giving to the inward a fixed and visible medium of 
communication with the outward, consisting of the active 
duties of the Christian profession, and of established sym- 
bols and authorized memorials. It saves itself, too, with 
equal success, from petrifying into the gross sensuousness 
of superstition, by drawing a broad distinction between 
form and spirit, the sign and the thing signified. 

Now there are many sorts of life besides the Gospel life. 
There is the life of the senses, the life of the imagination, 
the life of the intellect ; but none of them has its own 
unalterable type, nor the power to perpetuate an uncor- 
rupted germ. They are well nigh what circumstances 
make them. It is only the gospel life, whose centre and 
source are the God-man Christ Jesus, that has this fixed 
type — this indestructible virtue — this quick resiliency from 
corruption — this power to cast out alien elements, and 
transmit itself through individuals and through generations. 
It is, as it were, a fire of God's own kindling, and this 
attribute shows it. Nor will He suffer it to be quenched. 
Here and there along the centuries, and around the margin 
of this great human camp, it may, now and then, burn 
dimly ; or, like the binnacle of a sinking ship, flash out on 
the devouring sea only an occasional and spasmodic glare ; 
yet, somewhere on this earth, its purging flame shall be 
evermore bursting out on the pathway of man. 

We remark, in the second place, that the Christian reli- 



LITTLEJOHN. 



71 



gion is adapted to deal with mankind as a race, because 
it is, in a peculiar sense, a religion of light. It alone, of 
all systems, gives a rational account of the origin and 
destiny of man, and. sets forth the tests and elements of 
real progress. It knocks at the door of his narrow abode, 
built on the quicksands of guesses and speculations, and 
calling him out on the broad earth, and under the open 
sky, tells him who made this universal frame, and why it 
was made, and what shall be its end. " Come to me," is 
its language, " and I will give you a knowledge beyond the 
reach of crucibles and telescopes; I will explain to you 
your own wants and wishes, and put an end to toils that 
yield only the agony of cloubt and the pain of disappoint- 
ment." Thus Christianity endears itself to the race, and 
grasps its mind. It comes as a superior knowledge, a 
higher and surer truth, and, as such, bends charitably 
over its errors, assuring it of so much that is essential to 
its peace, that the race cannot afford to part with it. The 
race, as a whole, yearns to be educated, to be lifted to 
higher grades of knowledge, and to see its manifold powers 
more thoroughly developed ; but, to be educated, in this 
broad sense, there must be a school and a teacher. And 
well mankind know, from bitter experience, that to expel 
or to ignore Christianity, is to shut the doors of the one 
and the mouth of the other. A disagreeable teacher is 
sometimes endured for his gifts. And so, though the 
Gospel were repulsive in all other respects, human nature 
is selfish enough to cling to it, because it is a lamp in a 
dark place, a key to a world of enigmas. 

But, if Christianity grasps the continuous mind of the race 
because it is a Religion of Light, so, in the third place, we 
say it grasps the heart of the race, because it is a Religion 
of Love. That it is a religion of love is a necessary inference 
from its being a religion of light : for, whatever man may 



72 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



do, God never sends light into the soul without heat, nor 
plants there a thought which, if it be suffered to ripen, will 
not also become a feeling. Emphatically is this true of 
Christianity, which is the wisdom of God. It is as mighty 
to warm the heart as it is to illuminate the intellect. It is 
no mere bundle of rays, no mere shining surface flashing 
here and there an idle radiance, but rather a central flame, 
self-feeding and self-diffusing, warming every soul it enters 
with the glow of God's infinite love. Once seated in the 
hearts of enemies, it makes them friends. Discord cannot 
abide it, selfishness cannot resist it; never yet did malice 
create a desert or a ruin, in the hearts of men, which Chris- 
tian love could not people with living forms. Christianity 
is a religion of love, because, where it works, it never fails 
to make love the supreme affection of the soul. It lifts 
man above himself to God, and out of himself to his fellow : 
and hence it spontaneously asserts itself not only as a wor- 
ship of somewhat higher than man, but also in the sym- 
pathies of brotherhood. By these sympathies, which, though 
a part of human nature, are yet ever a dormant part save 
when animated by the inspirations of a supernatural order, 
the Christian religion has softened the asperities, and to 
some extent levelled the inequalities of moderp civilization ; 
bringing down the rich to mate with the poor ; lifting up 
the slave to a fellowship of destiny and privilege with the 
master ; lighting the torch of knowledge in the haunts of 
ignorance and superstition; spreading the wisdom of the 
wise downward through all the groping millions ; teaching 
all classes their duties and their rights, and that the doing 
of the former is the only sure method of winning the latter; 
following in the wake of trade and war, of disease and 
want and misfortune, to gather up their victims for the 
solace of a divine charity. Strange would it be if a sys- 
tem of faith productive of such works, and operating through 



LITTLE JOHN. 



73 



such sympathies, should not grasp the common heart of 
man and hold it through all vicissitudes ! Extreme would 
be that infatuation which would induce the race to give up 
the only assuager of its woes, and the only source of its 
serenest, noblest joys ! 

We have spoken of the Christian religion as spontaneously 
developing into an associative life, as gathering together 
in the bonds of paternal sympathy and on the basis of an 
organized spiritual fellowship, all sorts and conditions of 
mankind. We would now proceed to name a fourth reason 
why that religion is competent to deal with the race as a 
series of generations. That reason is to be found in the 
fact that it offers itself to man as an institution having an 
effective power for guidance and discipline. Christianity 
objectively viewed, contains thought, life, precepts, and 
principles, but is an institution — an embodied power. It is 
so as truly as it is a revelation. It was not in its origin, 
as some would have us believe, a mere dogma floating about 
the world and slowly elaborating its body out of historic 
accidents ; nor a mere string of virtues and charities await- 
ing a chance consolidation into a life and visible discipline. 
It started not only as a message, but as a kingdom set up 
among men to declare a message. It began with the 
functions of active governance. It came forth from the 
hands of its founder a Church complete in its attributes: 
with a worship, with sacraments and a ministry to admin- 
ister them, and with all needful discipline. " Repent ye," 
was the cry of the Forerunner in the wilderness, for not 
only a Gospel from Heaven, but " the Kingdom of Heaven, 
is at hand." Miraculous poVers were given to introduce 
the Gospel ; a visible church was ordained to continue it. 
Once introduced, and it became a kingdom not only in vir- 
tue of an ordinance of God, but also by the necessity of 

self-preservation. 
10 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



In this respect how marked its eminence over all other 
faiths and disciplines which have attempted the religious 
training of mankind. They, without an exception, exhibit 
the patched and halting process by which they were rounded 
out from the human mind ; and by the rude mechanism of 
their instituted forms betray their origin from social for- 
tuities, or stale enactments, or private interests. 

Christianity alone evinces that its structure as an insti- 
tution was the spontaneous product of its own organic life. 
Now this circumstance secures to it a peculiar fitness for 
dealing with the human race. This will appear if we look, 
for a moment, at some of the features of Christianity re- 
garded as a kingdom or institution. Take, for instance, its 
universality; and by this we mean not only the capacity, 
but the tendency to become universal. We find both in 
the very nature of the Catholicity claimed by the kingdom 
of Christ. In virtue of this note the Church is so consti- 
tuted that all its parts cohere in each other, and so cohere 
that all are the equal recipients of a common life. It is a 
society whose centre is to be found wherever it manifests its 
life, and exerts its lawful powers. It matters not what 
latitude, or climate, or race — wherever the cross is truly 
planted and a Christian fellowship properly organized, there 
is the Church's centre. Thence stream forth, like so many 
radii, its multitudinous gifts and prerogatives. 

And here we cross the track of that huge lie of Popery 
which gravely tells us that all the parts of the Church 
cohere not in each other, but in one part ; that they are all 
dead except they act in subordination to that one part ; 
that the church's centre is the Tope, and that it shifts with 
his wanderings and accidents. A strange catholicity that, 
which thus ties the centre of God's spiritual empire to the 
fortunes of a mortal man : of a man, too, whose double office 
as a religious head and a civil ruler engages him in a per- 



LITTLEJOHN. 



75 



petual scramble after temporal goods, and renders him the 
patron of usurpations, and tyrannies, and cabinet intrigues ! 
A strange catholicity of temper, that — to lift up one branch 
of Christ's mystical body through the degrading vassalage 
of all the rest ! But we only name this bastard theory of 
Catholic visibility, as the naming of a great truth suggests 
its base counterfeit. 

It was our remark, that this attribute of universality 
eminently adapted Christianity as a kingdom to deal with 
the whole race. It does so, because it qualifies it to deal 
with man under all varieties of character, condition, and 
culture, and under all forms of social and political life. 
And in this regard we must not fail to note the transcend- 
ent superiority of the Christian system over every other 
that has ever assumed to be the religious guide of our 
nature. If we examine the systems of the best of the 
ancients, we find them all alike characterized by intense 
localism and nationality. The Greek religion could find 
no home beyond the bounds of Greece. It w T as a lifeless 
thing away from the social usages and forms of art by 
which it was fed, and to which it in turn ministered. The 
Koman could not cross the bounds of the empire. Koman 
law, Roman literature, and Roman policy followed the vic- 
torious eagle, and grafted themselves on the vanquished. 
Not so the religion. Stationary and torpid, with no inter- 
nal strivings for diffusion, it hung for centuries around the 
same altars, shut up to a round of idle pomp and supersti- 
tious observance. If we look to the lower and grosser 
faiths of the world, we find the same features. Africa's 
faith can breathe only amid barbarism and darkness. The 
Asiatic systems are all tied up to their birthplaces. Hin- 
dooism cannot travel away from the Ganges, nor create a 
discipleship except amid the heats of a sultry climate. 
And Mohammedanism, though in some respects a higher 



76 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



religion, lives and flourishes only by the inspirations of 
violent conquest; peace is its paralysis, enterprise and 
social activity its death. 

It is, then, in the broad and vital sense suggested by this 
contrast, that we affirm the peculiar adaptation of the 
Christian system to deal with mankind as a race, to tri- 
umph over the hindrances interposed by geographical posi- 
tion, or national temperament, or peculiarities of political 
organization, and to gather together as one people, and on 
the basis of a redeemed and regenerate nature, all the dis- 
persed tribes of the world. Superior to all other faiths in 
the capacity to include all men, it is also their superior in 
the tendency to include them. Its power in this direction 
is neither hidden nor dormant, but ever visible and active. 
Its every disciple is a teacher and a missionary. Its life is 
the life of propagation. It gathers strength by expansion, 
and fulness by what it gives. This, in contradistinction to 
all societies and polities of human device, is the exclusive 
property of the kingdom of Christ. If, now, we add to this 
property of Christianity as a kingdom, its admirable combi- 
nation of permanence with flexibility — its capacity to be as 
the solid rock amid the mutations of the world, and at the 
same time to move through and control them with the per- 
vasive force and silent invisibility of the atmosphere ; and 
if, moreover, we reflect on the entireness and depth with 
which, through its doctrine, ritual, and fellowship, it grasps 
the intellect, the imagination, and the affections; we shall 
have before us some of the elements of that conviction 
which assures us of the supernatural adaptation of the 
Christian scheme to the wants of man, regarded not only 
as an individual, but as a series of generations. 

We shall now proceed to the third and last branch 
of our subject, namely, the suitableness of Christianity to 
elevate and transform the human character. "We shall 



LITTLEJOHN. 



77 



only indicate, without discussing, the several points sug- 
gested by this part of our theme. Among the more striking 
adaptations of the Gospel in this direction, we observe, first, 
that it is fitted to elevate and expand the mind, because it 
encourages rational inquiry in every department of thought, 
and accepts, as illustrative of, and in harmony with, its 
own teaching, the doctrines of a true philosophy ; because 
it emancipates the reason from the bondage of the senses ; 
because of the sacredness it attaches to truth, and the 
thoughtful activity it promotes by the grandeur and import- 
ance of the questions it proposes for contemplation. 

We observe, second, that it is adapted to the affections, 
because it fortifies them against the trials of the present 
life, by certifying the existence of a future state, and lead- 
ing them up out of earthly vicissitudes to an object infinite, 
perfect, and unchangeable. 

We remark, third, that the Gospel is adapted to the will 
and the conscience, because it provides for the pardon of 
sin, and effectively aids them in the struggle in which it 
calls them to engage ; because of the power of its sanctions, 
and the infinite value of the interests it puts at stake ; 
and, finally, for the reason that its teachings, on nearly all 
subjects of human concernment, are by facts and manifest- 
ations in action, as in the personal history of our Lord, 
and not by general rules and abstract propositions. 

Such, then, is the Christian religion in its power to reach 
the soul through the medium of rational conviction, and 
to exhaust the sources of proof ; such in its power to arrest 
human intelligence and satisfy it that it came from God ; 
such in its powder to develop and train the intellect and 
will of humanity — a power springing out of the life it gene- 
rates, out of the light it spreads, out of the charity it fosters, 
and out of the guidance and discipline supplied by positive 
institutions. 



78 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

Such, in other words, is the religion we profess, in its 
power of attestation, diffusion, and perpetuation. What 
a structure ! so perfect in finish, yet so stupendous in 
magnitude, so complicated yet so balanced, so special in 
its operation upon individual man, yet so boundless in its 
reach over the moral interests of the race ; its summit and 
foundation shadowed by mystery, yet the whole, from top 
to bottom, luminous with spiritual light. Wonderful are 
all God's works, and in wisdom has he made them all; 
but neither life, nor nature, nor humanity, nor the universe, 
can show aught like unto this. 

And now, as we stand on the height to which this course 
of thought has lifted us (and it is only one avenue out of 
a hundred leading to the same elevation), how like a thing 
of weakness crawl at our feet the most formidable shapes 
of unbelief ; how like a pigmy's straw appears its boasted 
enginery of assault; how puerile its efforts in piling up 
against the base of that everlasting rock, as if to overthrow 
it, fossils and skeletons, and chronological tables, and sup- 
posed discoveries in ethnology and physiology ! Infidelity, 
whatever its polish, acuteness, and erudition, we fear not, 
for any damage it may do the Faith in itself considered ; 
but only for the " mad woe" it breeds in the souls it conquers. 
Like the assassin, it ever courts the unguarded spot in 
the object of assault. Like the assassin, it strikes, regard- 
less of the value of the life it destroys. Like the assassin, 
it walks with masked visage and stealthy tread ; and its 
wages are the price of blood. Powerful only when con- 
cealed, its exposure is its defeat. In the sunlight, a harm- 
less monster which a child might sport with, it wields in 
the dark a scorpion's sting. The last and worst issue of a 
fallen nature, it is also the most stupendous of sins ; for it 
is the deliberate embodiment, in the forms of the intellect, 
of the moral alienation from truth of a depraved heart. 



L I T T L E J 0 II N. 



79 



As such let us brand it with reprobation ; let us battle for 
every inch of the ground over which it would pass. Let 
the soul that receives it remember that it thereby tears up 
the seminal principle of its greatness, and sunders itself 
from the foundations of truth and order. Let the people 
that wink at it, or fondle it, remember that every thread 
woven into its texture is one added to their shroud. For 
nothing is surer than that every step away from God or 
from Christianity, which is the wisdom of God, on the part 
of individuals or nations, is a step toward destruction. 

As for the coming fortunes of the Gospel, they are easily 
told. Its felt and demonstrated might to cleanse and 
transform the world ; its potent mastery over human hopes 
and sorrows; its marvellous adaptation to the deepest 
wants of man, must ever render it to human history "what 
the Nile is to Egypt, springing from hidden sources above 
it, flowing through its entire length, and, while ever hold- 
ing on its own heaven-descended course to a wider ocean, 
sending off unnumbered tributaries through all the chan- 
nels of life, to give impulse and advancement to all that 
contributes to the happiness and perfection of society." 



Pjtlosfljpjwal Sttpfitism. 



BY REV. EDWIN HARWOOD, 

RECTOR OF TELE CHURCH OF THE INCARNATION, NEW TORS. 



11 



II. 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 

SCEPTICISM is a disease peculiar to civilization and 
civilized life ; a disease which marks the old age of 
nations. It is really foreign to the tone and temper of a 
young and growing people. The founders of great empires 
always labour in faith : in the might of their convictions, 
too strong ever to be wiped out, they fulfil their appointed 
task. Their aims are always positive ; they live to build 
up, not to destroy : to plant, to tend, not to root out and 
neglect the interests of mankind. 

Want of faith can fall only upon a people whose mission 
is ended : who have nothing to look forward to : when 
their toils and battles have been accomplished : when lux- 
ury and amusement characterize the life and form the main 
objects of the public ambition. In the hour of danger, 
when Hannibal threatened the existence itself of Rome, the 
Senate, in solemn session, passed a vote of thanks to Yarro, 
their general, because, amid the fears of the time, he did 
not despair of the commonwealth. Yet, in the course of 
some hundreds of years, that Senate would hasten to pay 
obsequious court and to decree divine honours to the vilest 
creatures ever born. Consider what changes must have 
taken place in the habits, the pursuits, the life of the Ro- 
man, before the old Senate, in its sublime confidence, could 
be transformed into a fawning, imbecile conclave, trembling 
at the frown of some brutal master, and dependent for its 

(83) 



84 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



existence upon his arbitrary whims. It shows you the 
difference between the youth and old age of a nation : be- 
tween a nation in the period of its belief, and of its unbelief. 

You may ask, if unbelief be characteristic of nations in 
their old age, can it find a home among us at present ? It 
certainly should not be found here, yet, nevertheless, it is 
flourishing in the midst of us, and that, too, with consider- 
able vigour. This would seem to contradict the statement 
previously made. For we are a young race : our commerce, 
our agriculture, our enterprises of every description reveal 
an immense energy, and intelligence full of promise for the 
future. We feel our strength, and are not slow in proclaim- 
ing it. But we present this curious anomaly, that, while 
in all our material interests we are free, independent, young, 
and fresh, in our intellectual and spiritual relations we 
depend almost entirely upon the old world. We have no 
schools of thought, of letters, which may in just propriety 
of speech be called our own. Our opinions are based upon 
European training. European thought encounters us 
every where, especially in matters connected with theology 
and philosophy. It forms and moulds the speculative mind 
of the country, and, through that, the popular mind itself. 
But, as is well known, the thought of Europe — its specu- 
lative philosophy — is largely unbelieving : its unbelief is 
carried over into and lodged within the mind and heart of 
this country. The spectacle presented, then, is not that 
of youth seated at the feet of a venerable, ripened wisdom, 
but rather led by a worn-out, hollow, unbelieving, despair- 
ing worldliness — by an atheistic temper, to which all faith, 
whether in God or man, seems impossible. This is, I repeat, 
the spectacle presented now upon our soil. The unbelief 
of worn-out empires is working its way into the heart 
of this youthful commonwealth, with this difference, which 
only heightens the anomalous character of the whole phe- 



II AR WOOD 



&5 



nomenon, viz., that, while in Europe it is not confined to 
Christianity simply, but comprehends politics and political 
institutions, our people have enthusiastic faith in our de- 
mocratic system, but are unbelieving as yet only in the 
sphere of religion and theology. 

It is necessary, now, that we form a clear notion of scep- 
ticism. It is in itself the negation of belief: it is not mis- 
belief, not false faith as distinguished from real faith, but 
the absence of all faith, whether true or false. In its largest 
sense the word scepticism denotes circumspection. The 
mind looks around upon all subjects, without accepting or 
rejecting them. It keeps itself in a state of suspense over 
against them. It satisfies itself with a consideration of all 
objections and perplexities, but refuses any effort to remove 
them. It is an everlasting No — an interrogation — a doubt ; 
the negation of thought under its positive forms. 

Such a state of mind is, to say the leas*t, unhealthy. We 
must judge of it by falling back at last upon the unwaver- 
ing, ineradicable convictions of humanity at large. Man 
does not believe, will not allow, that the end of all thought 
is a mere negation ; that the world of truth is revealed to 
the thinking powers only to awaken their questionings ; 
that truths, which concern the power of man here and his 
blessedness hereafter, must stand in mute, inexpressive 
mystery over against the mind, forbidding any near access, 
throwing no light, ever present only as enigmas or riddles. 
We must form our estimate of the proper functions and 
destiny of the mind by and from the sure instincts of the 
mind itself. And these carry the mind onward in utter 
defiance of the conclusions of scepticism. Scepticism, being 
at war thus with the universal aspirations of humanity, 
must be a disease, an abnormal posture of the mind itself 
Hence, the question arises, is this disease seated primarily 
in the head or in the heart, in the understanding or in the 



86 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



will ? For myself, I have no hesitation in answering this 
question : I feel compelled to explain it by reference to the 
condition of the will or heart. For, first, the course of 
modern thought shows us that thought must end in the way 
of mere negation, unless the will, our principle of person- 
ality, be felt as an essential factor in the sphere of specu- 
lation, and, secondly, the history of modern scepticism 
shows also that it takes its rise only when a lethargy rests 
upon the spiritual life of the nation or nations. 

1. And first, to consider the observation — that thought 
must end in the way of mere negation, unless the will, our 
principle of personality, be felt as an essential factor in the 
sphere of speculation. 

He who occupies his mind with the causes of things, finds 
himself drawn to a consideration of an original, absolute 
cause ; the fountain and energizing source of all individual, 
finite life. Eeason, by an inherent law of its own pro- 
cesses, mounts to, or rather finds at hand, the idea of this 
absolute cause. It cannot rest in the notion of many 
causes, or of secondary causes : it must seek the first, must 
acknowledge it. But philosophically, as has been remarked 
by Fr. Schlegel, " this conception of a first cause is of a 
totally undecided character, and admits of a double, indeed 
of varied significations, and everything lies in the choice 
between these various significations." It must be obvious 
to you that the conception of a first cause is one thing, 
and the character or attributes given to this first cause 
quite another. Reason in itself is indifferent in the mat- 
ter, so far as any attributes are concerned, distinct from 
the idea of immanent power. Of itself, and by itself, 
reason may, in fact, following its own bent, take into 
consideration simply and solely the idea of power and 
substance. The one absolute cause may appear to it 
essentially under this form. For, manifestly, whether 
God be a person or a power, can be a question of no 



H A R W 0 0 D. 



87 



moment to the speculative reason in itself, which looks 
simply for the ground of things under its abstract form, 
and not otherwise. If, then, it do not occupy itself, so far 
as its own undisturbed processes are concerned, with the 
idea of God as a person, but rather as power and cause, 
the result of all discursive thinking upon the subject must 
end in a negation. Conclusions must be reached utterly 
at war with the convictions, the aspirations, the wants of 
man as a moral, accountable, spiritual being; for a per- 
sonal God will be set aside or ignored, and with Him all 
the moral life of humanity, which is based upon and flows 
from the relation subsisting between the accountable crea- 
ture and the law-giving, truth-revealing Creator. Modern 
speculative thought, under some of its highest as well as 
deepest forms, verifies this; it has reached this goal, and 
stands in clear hostility to the ethical, spiritual view of 
life, w r hich the wants and conscious convictions of the soul 
require. 

According, then, to my former remark, everything de- 
pends upon the choice made at the outset of thought, 
between the varied significations attached to the conception 
of the first original cause of things. Shall w r e or shall w r e 
not make, from the starting point, any provision for the 
moral, spiritual convictions of human nature ? Shall we 
or shall we not allow the fact of our personality to have 
its weight by clothing God with the attributes of person- 
ality, by considering Him as the Father Almighty, maker 
of heaven and earth, and not merely as infinite substance, 
without will, without personality, after the fashion of Pan- 
theism ? But to this result we must come if we ignore the 
necessities of the moral nature ; if w T e overlook the ele- 
ments of our personality, and think as if we were mere 
thinking creatures, without hopes and fears, without duties 
and responsibilities, without yearnings and aspirations 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



toward God as a holy person. We must, I repeat, be 
driven to logical conclusions utterly at variance with the 
deepest convictions of our being. How then shall we act 
in this case ? One of the two opposing powers must con- 
quer. Shall we adopt the one-sided conclusions of the 
speculative faculty, to the loss of our moral being? or 
shall we stand firmly upon the latter, in the full conviction 
that thought must be radically vicious, which would leave 
the soul without a God whom it could love and worship? 
Humanity cries out against thought which shall end in 
the gloom of featureless abstractions. It is not the kind 
of thought which can carry the life of man onward and 
upward; which can give stimulus to his powers of mind 
and heart. It girdles him round about w r ith infinite 
nothing. 

Of course I must be^ understood to speak here of Pan- 
theism only in so far as it is destructive — destructive of 
the moral life of man, of his hopes and joys; and in this 
view of it, as pure scepticism, by withdrawing the grounds 
of moral obligation, without any capacity to annihilate 
the moral being of man; in a word, as the negative of his 
spiritual instincts. I have alluded to it as authenticating 
the assertion that thought ends in the way of negation, 
unless the principle of our personality be admitted as an 
essential factor in the sphere of speculation. 

The truth of this will appear further by an illustration 
which may be deemed more simple. The common sense 
of Christendom finds in man's consciousness full and suffi- 
cient proof of the independent' life of the soul. Suppose 
now an anatomist, paying no attention to his own con- 
sciousness, resolved that, unless he can, by ocular demon- 
stration, prove this, he will not believe it. We know what 
the result will be ; we know he cannot find the mind in 
the brain ; he will find simply and only material substance. 



/ 



HARWOOD. 89 

He may be viewed already as committed to a foregone con- 
clusion. The knife cannot detect the soul. Is there, 
therefore, nothing of us but body ? Is our frame, with all 
its wonderful organization, and powers, and functions, our 
all ? If any anatomist say, yes, he is flying in the teeth 
of the consciousness of the soul itself — he is destroying its 
life ; he, too, is at war with the wants and convictions of 
the soul. He, likewise, believes nothing; is afloat as a 
spiritual being upon a shoreless sea. The skill and intelli- 
gence with which he handles the dissecting knife, the 
strong emotions of his heart when confronted with human 
suffering, his delight in the knowledge of human goodness, 
his abhorrence of crime and tyranny, the ebb and flow of 
his being in the presence of spiritual beauty — all these are 
but the properties and sensations of flesh and blood, because 
he cannot find the soul; because he accepts as realities 
only whatsoever is comprehended within the region of 
sense. 

It would seem, therefore, that the character, as well as 
issues of thought, depends upon the presence and power 
of a certain somewhat in the thinker, which indeed under- 
lies, and is antecedent to, all thought. Its entire worth, 
for himself and for the world, depends upon the recogni- 
tion of the moral and spiritual w ants of the soul. It must 
be based upon, and proceed from, a conviction of their 
reality. Nothing else can save the mind, either from uni- 
versal scepticism, or from positive misbelief. Now scepti- 
cism utterly sets aside this requisition. It overlooks or 
denies the real ethical constitution of man. It makes it 
of no account. And here we are in full hostility with it. 
For we say to the sceptic, what right have you to overlook 
in your supercilious style the convictions of our moral 
man ; to turn a deaf ear to the longings of the soul after 
God; to refuse all exertion to satisfy its cravings after 

12 



5)0 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



Him, whom it must love if it shall ever carry with it a 
sense of blessedness? Obviously, it is an arbitrary pro- 
ceeding to cast aside the demands of a portion of our 
being, and to make everything of only another portion, 
and then to avow that all has been done. For the pur- 
poses of science the wants of the spirit are as fully autho- 
ritative as those of the mind, taken by itself simply. 
And the reality of that authority is attested in the nega- 
tions and ghastly shadows which the neglect of it upon 
the part of a thinker is sure to beget. But scepticism dis- 
appears when the spiritual necessities of the soul find a 
full recognition ; therefore we may say that in the neglect 
of these it has its being ; it lives in so far as the soul dies. 
It says, perhaps I should love God, perhaps not ; perhaps 
I am immortal, perhaps not ; perhaps God is a personal 
being, perhaps not. It has no yes ! 

And here lies the difference between the doubter and the 
sceptic. The doubter may, if I be allowed the expression, 
have faith and yet no belief, A strong conviction may 
dwell in him that God has not willed His creatures to 
spend their days in ignorance of Him, to wander about 
hopelessly in quest of truths, which, when seen, are mute ; 
or, on the other hand, to live as the beasts that perish. He 
believes there is a truth, which he may know. Aspiration 
mounts upward upon the wings of faith. Holy reverence 
for the undiscovered realities glows within the heart. It 
can worship : yet from certain peculiarities of mind, from 
the bias given it by education, from the books it may have 
studied, from these and kindred causes, the mind may be 
perplexed, may question and find no immediate response ; 
and thus be a sojourner amidst uncertainties, not knowing 
its position, not able to perceive what it needs. Still this, 
which is the lot of almost every earnest thinker during 
some portion of his life, will finally pass away, if the deeper, 



H A It W 0 0 D. 



91 



underlying principle and power continue to make itself 
felt. 

The sceptic, however, has no such feeling. No sacred 
faith beams within him ; no hope cheers his spirit. Yague, 
blank, unending, unsatisfying hesitation concerning all 
things spiritual has seized him. Turn as he may, he be- 
holds some insurmountable difficulty : think as he will, he 
arrives at the same powerless conclusion. And of all this 
we can be well assured, before his unbelief finds an utter- 
ance. 

In the next place, in further proof that scepticism, as a 
disease, is seated in the will or heart, we may refer to the 
history of modern scepticism itself. Under what circum- 
stances has it made itself felt ? Not in the days of the 
Luthers, the Calvins, the Hookers, nor the Bossuets of 
modern Europe ; not when the nations, under the sway of 
great ideas, have "mewed their mighty strength," nor when 
they have battled with idols and corruptions of the truth 
of God ; not when churches and senate chambers have rung 
with the eloquence which faith inspires ; not when self- 
sacrificing pastors have fed the flocks of God committed to 
their care — not then and so. Under far different circum- 
stances from these has it done its work. Its stammering 
voice has been heard, when a shallow philosophy and a 
dead orthodoxy have, ruled the public mind ; when John 
Locke was the oracle in England to whom all aspirants 
after philosophic culture turned ; when David Hume, who 
carried onward the notions of Locke to their destructive 
issues, became the great light in which not only England, 
but France, and through France a portion of Germany also 
rejoiced ; when the churches of Europe held the form of 
the truth in a frigid, formal way, not seeking to penetrate 
its inner meaning; when the pulpits sent forth weekly 
messages, in the shape of pointless generalizations concern- 



93 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



ing right conduct, or else of bald, formal, doctrinal state- 
ment; when the Church of England was so far blinded as 
to cast forth John Wesley — in a word, when all spiritual 
life was stagnant, and a living faith driven from the sanc- 
tuary. It was then that doubt spread; and uttered itself, 
now in sophistries, now in blasphemies, now in sentimen- 
talities, and now in despairing cries. The mind of Europe 
was sick and its heart faint. It had no faith — no resting- 
place for the sole of its foot. In England scepticism as- 
sumed the form of a cold, godless sneer : in France it 
assisted at the orgies of a blasphemous court, was seated 
in the temples of God, and finally presided over the fires 
and fury of the Kevolution : in Germany it grew melan- 
choly and despairing, until at last it was seized at the heart 
and strangled under its old form by a master mind, who 
thought he had reared upon its ruins a fabric for all time. 
Hume and Voltaire were dethroned ; the sceptre departed 
from them ; but scepticism itself was not rooted out from 
the heart of Europe. With all sympathy I say it, the 
mystery of the Tower of Babel has been acted over again 
during these fifty years past. Men of extraordinary gifts 
and culture have attempted to rear absolute systems, deep 
as death, high as Heaven : one has followed another only 
to be overthrown, causing confusion and contention, calling 
forth dismay ending in bewilderment. They have toiled 
with positive aims, they have reached negative results. At 
this moment no one man controls the mind of Europe ; no 
philosophic system can be said to be in power. Precious 
fragments lie strewed about the ground, destined indeed to 
live. But the mind of Europe is still borne on the dark 
waves of uncertainty. The demon of unrest still drives it 
onward : it wanders, not, alas ! as a pilgrim, but like an 
exile. 

Enough has been said, I trust, to make it apparent now 



HARWOOD. 



93 



that scepticism, as a disease, is seated primarily in the will 
or heart ; that it is grounded in a denial, not indeed of 
any of the laws of thought as such, but of the wants and 
fixed characteristics of the ethical and spiritual portion of 
our being; that it flourishes when and where these are 
overlooked. Thus far we have been concerned with it 
only generally. It is necessary now that we view it more 
closely in its details, in the particular phenomena brought 
to light by it. 

What form may it be said to have assumed now in the 
sphere of theology ? This is the question most serious in 
its issues for us and for our children. In all Protestant 
countries, then, where, of course, the Bible is formally 
acknowledged as the sole authoritative rule of ffcith and 
practice, scepticism comes forward with a denial of this 
acknowledgment. It denies that the Holy Scriptures are 
of any binding authority upon the mind and heart of the 
world, and this denial is supported by a searching critique 
of the Bible itself. So far, then, as the principle of 
authority is concerned, it meets it in this way. In Roman 
Catholic countries, it would meet that principle by denying 
the divine institution of the church. Whether, therefore, 
the church, or the Scriptures, or both, combined after the 
Anglican method, be the formal symbol whereby the 
objective authority of Christianity is acknowledged, it 
receives a flat denial. But this denial does not rest so 
much upon the insufficiency of each or of all these to be 
an authority, as upon the antecedent ground that there 
can be no authoritative power of any sort in the sphere of 
faith. To fight against the idea of authority may not 
answer its purposes : it therefore attacks the particular 
symbols which bring that idea to a particular form — the 
symbols whereby it is authenticated and embodied. 

It has, then, assailed the Bible in the particular of its 



94 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



credibility; arguing that, inasmuch as miracles are con- 
trary to experience, any record of miraculous transactions 
must be false, and therefore cannot be of any validity to 
the mind and conscience of man. This is the substance 
of Hume's theory, which we need not notice here ; for the 
ground of controversy has changed since his day, and we 
meet with a denial of the authority of the Scriptures under 
a new and more imposing form. A much more learned 
and acute criticism than was ever dreamed of by English 
or French deists, has made itself heard through Europe ; 
it has penetrated the very forests of the New World. 
True, it starts from a certain theory gathered not from, 
but formed antecedently to, a study of the Bible itself. It 
holds strictly to the impossibility of a supernatural revela- 
tion, to the impossibility of a miracle. It holds, still far- 
ther, that the phases and forms of religion, are but the 
product of the natural processes through which humanity 
is passing from one stage of its development to another. 

Armed thus with certain foregone conclusions, which 
themselves are the negation of all authority inhering in 
the Bible, it has applied itself to a study of it. Obviously, 
then, all statements of supernatural fact or revelation, of 
miracle and heavenly sign, are denied — denied flatly ; are 
viewed as pure myths, embodying the religious conceptions 
of the age in which they were written. They are either 
fictions invented to give pith and point to a notion of the 
Writer, or have been inserted as true by the writers, who 
were not sufficiently critical to distinguish between actual 
fact and legend. In this way all the miracles in the Bible 
are disposed of. By this process it is placed in the same 
category with the primitive traditions of the rude, barbaric, 
dawning ages of the world. A parallel criticism is applied 
to the New Testament. All that is deemed an interference 
with the natural order of the world is summarily rejected : 



HARWOOD. 



95 



all that remains is accepted as true, in so far as it corres- 
ponds with the present opinions of this criticism; is set 
aside in so far as it is opposed to them. Nevertheless, it 
claims that it recognises the moral grandeur of Prophet, 
of Evangelist, of Apostle. It is by no means churlish of 
its praises : it does not weigh its words in fear that by 
chance it may allow r too much weight to the Bible. It 
will not refuse to speak even of the inspiration of an Isaiah 
or of a Paul. It grows quite indignant over the sneers 
with which English and French sceptics treat the Holy 
Book ; it cannot ridicule what has been deemed sacred by 
saints and wise men; it will drink of the fountains of 
Scripture, and seek even to comprehend such of its truths 
as, in its judgment, are veritable reflections of the One 
Eternal Beason. No one book, it will readily acknowledge, 
contains so much of the life and power of the Beligion of 
the Absolute as this. Yet, in the mean while, it will not 
hesitate utterly to set aside all the statements in the Bible 
of supernatural fact; at one fell swoop, by one foregone 
conclusion, it clears the ground of every semblance of a 
supernatural revelation, at least to its own satisfaction. 
David is inspired, so also is Homer ; Isaiah, and Jeremiah, 
and Paul, and John are teachers of the world, but not in 
any higher sense than Plato and Aristotle. Of course this 
criticism destroys, in so far as it is accepted, all the differ- 
entia of Christianity, strips it of its essential, historical 
facts, and then tells men to retain the ideas which underlie 
or are embodied in the sacred legends and mythical crea- 
tions of Holy Writ. No matter how positive its forms of 
expression, they contemplate and reach simply a negative 
result — the denial of Christianity as an objective, historical 
revelation ; and with such denial, comes inevitably incerti- 
tude, not only in the way of thought, but of spiritual 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



action. It takes from the soul the only foundation upon 
which piety can rest, and then calls upon men to live 
piously. 

It is essentially under this form that the latest unbelief 
has come to light. The way in which it handles the 
details of Scripture, this particular miracle or that, does not 
concern us here. It becomes us to see and to know that 
its rejection of the truth and reality of the record of 
supernatural fact rests upon, and proceeds from, an antece- 
dent, speculative principle, viz., that an objective revelation 
and a miracle are both equally impossible. Manifestly, 
the controversy with unbelief cannot rest upon the letter 
of Scripture ; it must be met antecedently to a study of the 
Scripture ; since the statements of Scripture have neither 
produced unbelief, nor afford any shadow of hope that 
unbelief can be removed by it. The letter of Scripture 
is of authority only to those who recognise that autho- 
rity : its meanings cannot settle a struggle between two 
parties, one of whom accepts, while the other refuses them. 
We may employ Scripture in our contest with errorists, 
within the pale of a common faith : but, mark it well, 
brethren, unbelief, under its present form, totally rejects 
Scripture as an authority for the mind and conscience ; and 
at once, therefore, dismisses any appeal to it which faith 
may make ; and, with that rejection, it ignores the entire 
supernatural life and order of the Gospel. It presents 
itself clearly to our minds, then, as a denial of Christianity 
in its historic sense, grounded on the antecedent theory 
of the impossibility of a revelation. It matters little whe- 
ther, in the hands of Strauss, this unbelief take a Panthe- 
istic form, or in the hands of Francis William Newman a 
Theistic form; it destroys everything like certitude and 
leaves the soul without a revealed Father. When Mr. 



HARWOOD. 



97 



Newman says, with reference to the soul's immortality, 
" Confidence thus there is none, and aspiration is her (the 
soul's) highest state ;" he affords a striking instance of the 
highest posture the soul may reach without an historic 
belief. He aspires to immortality, but he cannot say that 
he is immortal; he hopes he shall not be annihilated, but 
he knows not. Perhaps he shall live — perhaps ! but he 
cannot, when doubt assails him, stand on those words of 
the blessed Lord, " Because I live, ye shall live also." 

In its completed forms, such scepticism is a manifest 
overlooking of the wants and yearnings of the soul : a 
search, not for concrete fact, corresponding to inward neces- 
sities, but only for such abstract forms as may satisfy the 
mind, considered in itself : ending in notions and denials, 
and leaving the heart to its fate ! It may hunger and 
thirst; it may stretch forth its hands and cry after the 
living God ; but the heavens are voiceless ! the Father 
Almighty is not revealed ! 

I need not dwell here upon the evils and dangers to be 
apprehended from a growth of scepticism in our midst. It 
has indeed a charm for the young, for the well educated, 
for the adventurous of thought and fancy. Clad in brilliant 
rhetoric, adorned with learning, pursuing its way with a 
certain beauty of motion, it seems an angel of light. For 
it promises men a solution of their anxious questionings ; 
it undertakes to open to their mind the mysteries of heaven 
and earth ; it offers them dominion and power ; it holds 
out the hope of destroying all superstition and of securing 
the sway of righteousness and judgment and mercy upon 
the earth. But, in the mean while, the real work of destruc- 
tion is going on. The cultivated become supercilious and 
selfish, having for ever at their tongues' end the formulas 

of their favourite teachers, with no holy calm in the sanc- 
13 



98 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



tuary of the soul ; never dreaming of sacrifice, ignorant of 
the life of love : the uncultivated become fierce in their 
hatred of the rich and favoured, abominable and gross in 
their pleasures ; denying the very being of the great God, 
and living as the beasts that perish. Of its effects, I repeat, 
I cannot now speak. It becomes us rather to consider the 
way in which it must be met. 

Certainly it cannot be by abstractions. Bald affirma- 
tions over against denials are not needed now ; are not at 
all adequate to the exigencies of the crisis towards which 
the church is now driven. We may expose the falsities 
and sophistries of unbelief; may drive it from its strong- 
holds, strip it of its fair disguises, clear away the obstruc- 
tions which serve it as barricades in all its revolutionary 
and destructive movements ; we may even do all this, and 
yet unbelief itself may flourish, may break forth in ever- 
changing forms. Oar labour will be useless. For scepti- 
cism is essentially a spirit, not simply an intellectual form 
of unbelief. It furnishes incontestable evidence of disease 
at the heart of a people, and we must meet it as such, else 
we fail to counteract it. And how then are we to do bat- 
tle with it ? By the positive, living power of faith. 

The day has come when we must be against unbelief 
what the early disciples were; what the people of God 
have ever been, in times when the cause of truth has tri- 
umphed in their hands. We must show forth Christ Jesus 
as the real, not merely nominal, mediator between God and 
man. In such an hour of distraction and strife, this will 
meet our wants and the wants of the world, and this only. 
For it is utterly hopeless, and betrays an ignorance of the 
pass to which men are now brought, to suppose that God's 
cause can triumph in this day, by the mere repetition of 
the forms of divine truth. The world is rebelling against 



H ARWOOD. 



99 



those forms; we must translate them into action. Our 
Incarnate Lord must be our real Sovereign and Head ; the 
foundation of our hope, the well-spring of our joy. This is 
and must ever be the keystone in that arch of Christian 
evidence which no man can break. It is positive : it moulds 
the spirit into a positive form ; endues the church with the 
attributes of Christ's real body, so that she will speak His 
truth, will do His work, and will move among men as a 
divine presence. The logic of action is resistless. Thin 
metaphysics, cavilling niceties disappear from before it. 
Its tread is that of a victorious power : its thought reaches 
its goal, like an arrow winged by a hand and directed by 
an eye that never misses its mark. And this is the logic 
of the spirit — action ! action ! action ! 

Let me not be misunderstood, however. I do not hold 
that we must rush blindly into action because it is neces- 
sary. It must be action such as Christ wills, not such as 
our self-will might dictate ; action grounded in love and 
faith ; the action of a God-inspired, a heaven-taught faith, 
such as saints and holy men have ever exhibited ; the pro- 
duct of living thought and pious feeling. This alone can 
overthrow unbelief and master the heart of the wwld, by- 
creating the conviction that the wants, the aspirations, the 
blessedness of this poor human race are bound up in Christ 
our Lord; and that unbelief is powerless to throw light 
into the darkness of time or eternity, to infuse w^armth and 
life into humanity. 

Standing upon this ground, our way will be clear to deal 
with scepticism in its actual forms. To meet this end, we 
must have an intellectual ministry, as well as one distin- 
guished for its piety. And by an intellectual ministry I 
mean one which shall have, besides book-learning, a mind 
trained to familiarity with the thought of the age ; brought 



100 



PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 



up to the full measure of participation in that thought ; 
able to battle with it if false, able to roll it onward if true ; 
able to detect its worth as well as its defects. This, then, 
will lead us to the truth, will enable the advocates of the 
faith to be just and candid, to move onward in the true 
spirit. By these means we shall transmit the legacy, be- 
queathed to us, unto our children, unimpaired, unbroken, 
in its rich and life-giving fulness. 



(In Iftiracb. 



BY REV. CHARLES MASON, 

RECTOR OF GRACE CHURCH, BOSTON. 



III. 



ON MIRACLES. 



He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and 
foot, with graveclothes. — John, n. 43. 



0 one, at all familiar with the history of opinions, can 



J3I fail to observe how the great questions, which involve 
the chief speculative difficulties in moral and religious truth, 
after certain intervals, return, as if subject to some law of 
periodic revolution, back upon the human mind, and de- 
mand renewed examination. We find ourselves still under 
the necessity of discussing, as if doubtful, questions agitated 
and regarded as settled ages ago ; and, in different lands, 
Christian scholars are at this moment engaged in subjecting 
to fresh and severe investigation, truths held by our fathers 
as for ever established among the very principles of morals 
and religion. Not many years have passed since the im- 
pression seemed general, that we might quietly repose upon 
the idea that the great battles with infidelity had been 
fought through, and a final victory gained. We saw, 
gathered together in the arsenals of the church, such tro- 
phies, won by the giants of former days, and such mighty 
weapons laid up in store, that it was almost imagined the 
very sight would intimidate similar enemies from ever 
renewing the attack. The battles with infidelity, like the 
battles of the Reformation, had been fought, and for ever 
ended ! 

But alarming experience has proved the folly and danger 




(103) 



104 



ON MIRACLES. 



of such exultation, and compelled the conviction that the 
great questions at issue in such subjects lie deep in the 
tendencies of the human mind ; so that though the elements 
of strife may be lulled upon the surface, the depths may 
again at any period be moved, and that, as in practical 
religious character the price of safety is watchfulness at all 
times against every enemy of our salvation, so in the church 
there must be eternal vigilance against even those old 
errors which have been often overthrown, but by which 
many who felt strong in the faith have been taken captive, 
even while proclaiming their superiority to danger. 

It is doubtless true that each age adds some new element 
to such questions • that by renewed and earnest inquiry 
some advance is made ; and that afterwards the mind rests 
upon a firmer foundation, even if only because this has 
been again thoroughly tried, and found secure, the tradi- 
tional assurance of its strength being confirmed by actual 
experience, gained by new danger met and overcome. 
These remarks apply, with unqualified force, to the subject 
now to be discussed — that of " Miracles, with especial 
reference to objections most current at the present day." 

The attacks now made upon the evidence of Christianity 
derived from miracles, involve no new principles, though 
they gain additional effect from the setting in upon the age 
of new currents of knowledge, and the prevalence of new 
habits of thought. Old objections take a new form and 
dress, and borrow enough of prevailing truth to preserve 
the disguise. The works of a noted English infidel,* writ- 
ten early in the last century, contain the essential features 
in the system of onef of the most prominent advocates of 
infidel principles in our own country at the present day. 
That system is, in brief, as follows : "Christianity, stripped 



* Tindal. 



f Theodore Parker. 



M A S 0 N. 



105 



of the additions which mistake, policy, rhetorical artifice, 
the circumstances of time, the errors of interpreters, have 
made it, is absolute religion — the internal revelation of the 
law of nature in the hearts of men — and therefore needs 
no external evidence or authority to commend it." 

And the distinctive idea of the work of Strauss, who, 
with such an array of learning, strives to eliminate from 
the Gospel narratives everything regarded as miraculous, 
was the principal point in the argument of another well- 
known English infidel* of the last century, and the sub- 
stantial answer to both was then written in these words : 
"By the same way of management, by arbitrary supposi- 
tions, and adding or altering circumstances as he judged 
proper, he might have proved the most authentic accounts 
in the Greek and Roman history to be false and incredible. 
He might, at the same rate of argument, have undertaken 
to prove that there was no such person as Jesus Christ, or 
his apostles, or that they were only allegorical persons, and 
that Christianity was never planted or propagated in the 
world at all."*j* 

The obvious, natural, legitimate mode of treating the 
subject of miracles, as a part of the Christian evidences, is 
that by way of historical testimony, — to establish their reality 
as facts. This has often been done, with such accumulated 
testimony as to have produced the general conviction that 
the sceptical reasoning, which aims to destroy its force, 
would unsettle belief in every wonderful event of history, 
and even the foundation of all belief in the past. Expe- 
rience also brings constant proofs, that a theory in the 
mind, whether relating to nature, or testimony, or language, 
may practically neutralize the effect of any degree of testi- 
mony, though in itself absolutely conclusive. Theories or 

* Woolston. 

f Leland's View of Deistieal Writers. 

14 



106 



OX MIRACLES. 



states of the mind may so pre-occupy it, and affect its whole 
tone, as apparently to compel the rejection of all external 
proofs not in accordance with them. 

Some of these theories, bearing upon the evidence of 
miracles, I propose to consider. 

1. There is a theory, very ancient, and yet also very 
common at the present day, which, by a priori reasoning 
in regard to the laws of nature and the attributes of God, 
concludes against all miracles as imjiossible, and therefore, 
from the nature of the case, incapable of proof. This is 
the source of much of the sceptical spirit of the day. By 
this summary process all examination of external evidence 
is superseded. If a miracle be impossible, the attempt to 
prove its reality is like beating the air. 

The supporters of this theory are bound, by a rigid theo- 
retic necessity, to get rid of the evidences of miracles in 
every way possible, and they therefore bring to bear upon 
them all kinds and processes of reasoning. 

It is affirmed, that all the experience we have of the natu- 
ral world indicates the uniform constant operation of natural 
laws ; that by these all the movements of the natural world 
are governed with unerring exactness, as if nature, in all 
its parts, and through the endless variety of its processes, 
w r ere some vast and infinitely intricate machine, moving 
by certain fixed, unchangeable laws. Now, it must be 
allowed, that miracles pre-suppose laws of nature, so called, 
and their uniform operation, within certain limits; and 
they imply, and actually are, a suspension of, or variation 
from, the strict uniformitv of those laws. But the whole 
question, whether miracles be inconsistent with the laws 
which constitute the order of the natural world, depends 
upon what the laws of nature are, and upon what deter- 
mines and controls their operation. Our knowledge of these 
laws is derived from a generalization of the facts in nature. 



M A S 0 N. 



107 



Every age adds to this knowledge, as the field of nature is 
explored more widely and minutely, and the results sub- 
jected to more searching analysis. From time to time, 
laws, which had been supposed to be ultimate, are found 
to be limited, controlled by, and, as it were, included in, 
other laws of higher and more general operation. 

But the knowledge of these laws is simply the result of 
a generalization by the human mind, made from a wide 
and exact observation of the facts of nature. We know 
not in any case that the suspension of, or variation from, 
the uniform operation of a certain law, may not be in obe- 
dience to some higher law, and in perfect harmony with 
the great design of the whole system of nature. Moreover, 
when w r e have deduced from observation of the uniform 
connexion between certain facts, related as antecedents 
and consequents, the reality of any law of nature, it is still 
obvious that all our knowledge is limited to what we have 
observed, that is, merely the uniformity. That uniform 
relation we call a law of nature. But of the actual ground 
or cause of the uniformity, we have made no discovery. 
The fact only we know. Nothing in nature gives the 
slightest evidence, that the succession of facts, from which 
the law was deduced, is the result of any inherent or effi- 
cient power in nature, by which the facts were made so 
to succeed each other. We speak indeed of the laws of 
nature, as if inherent in nature. But this mode of speech 
is merely an accommodation to popular impressions. 
Strictly speaking, it rests upon no actual knowledge. On 
the contrary, the more searching the examination of nature, 
and the changes in it, the stronger does the conclusion 
become, that nothing like an inherent, efficient power to 
produce those changes, can be discovered in nature. The 
substance, thus ever changing, is, in itself, passive, inert, 
and unintelligent. The changes indicate active, intelligent 



108 



ON MIRACLES. 



power. Those changes must, therefore, be governed by a 
power separate from, and above nature. The law which 
the changes indicate is not any real power in the substance 
changing, by which the successive facts observed are linked 
together by a necessary connexion ; but is simply the law 
or rule by which a real power above nature operates in and 
through it. " Forasmuch as the works of nature are no 
less exact, than if she did both behold and study how to 
express some absolute shape or mirror always present 
before her ; yea, such dexterity and skill appeareth, that 
no intellectual creature in the world were able by capacity 
to do that which nature doth without capacity and know- 
ledge ; it cannot be, but nature hath some director of infi- 
nite knowledge to guide her in all her ways. Who is the 
guide of nature, but only the God of nature ? Those 
things which nature is said to do, are by Divine art pro- 
found, using nature as an instrument; nor is there any 
such art or knowledge divine in nature herself working, 
but in the guide of nature's work."* 

" The grandest discovery ever made in natural philoso- 
phy, was that of the law of gravity, which opens such a 
view of our planetary system that it looks like something 
Divine. But the author of the discovery was perfectly 
aware that he discovered no real cause, but only the law or 
rule, according to which the unknown cause operates. The 
laws of nature are the rules according to which the effects 
are produced, but there must be a cause which operates 
according to those rules. Upon the theatre of nature we 
see innumerable effects, which require an agent endowed 
with active power."-}* The same truth is still more emphati- 
cally expressed by another and later writer of high autho- 
rity. " Whence comes its (nature's) countless changes, its 

* Hooker. Eccles. Pol. Book 1, Sec. 3. 

f Heid. " Active Powers"— Essay 1, Ch. G. 



M A S 0 N. 



109 



incessant activity and life ? It is no answer to this ques- 
tion to say, that events constantly succeed each other in 
regular sequence, or even to give a name to that order, and 
call it law, or 'physical cause. You cannot believe, you 
cannot even imagine, that any one of these events takes 
place without a real cause, an efficient energy, without 
which it were not."* 

The laws of nature are, then, simply the laws by which 
the great Author and Ruler of nature works after the 
counsel of his own will. That will, directed by infinite 
wisdom, established and sustained those laws. They may 
be suspended, if consistent with the eternal counsel of God 
in creation. The alleged impossibility of such an event 
cannot be inferred from any uniformity in the order of 
nature, since this is directly dependent upon the free and 
sovereign will of God. It can be maintained only by 
proving that a miracle is inconsistent with the final purpose 
of God in the laws of nature. And who can pretend to such 
knowledge of this as will enable him to pronounce a miracle 
impossible ? Who can even affirm, with knowledge, that 
the temporary suspension of a natural law, so called, may 
not be in perfect accordance with the Divine plan which 
governed the Almighty in the creation of the world ? God 
is immutable and omniscient, and will fulfil His eternal 
purpose in creation. But that purpose is inscrutable ; and 
no man can know that a miracle was not in the original 
counsel of God, and in accordance with the eternal plan, 
which all natural laws subserve. It may have been 
ordained for a higher end than the strict uniformity of the 
order of nature could compass. The laws of nature may 
be under that law which rendered the miracle necessary. 

The final cause of the uniformity itself of the movements 



* Bowen. Lowell Lectures, p. 13G. 



110 



ON MIRACLES. 



of the natural world, may be the great moral ends, which 
the miraculous suspension of that uniformity is designed, 
and alone adapted, to secure. Some of these we can dis- 
cover by observation of the effects of miracles. They are 
a most impressive teacher, more so than even the uniform 
order of nature, that there is a great personal cause, above 
nature, who site upon the throne of the universe. They 
are a powerful check upon that tendency to rely upon 
second causes, and to forget God and His providence, to 
which man is prone to yield even through his experience of 
tlie uniformity of the order of nature. 

A divine interposition, arrestiug the movements of 
nature, like that of the deluge, or the destruction of the 
cities of the plain; or that on Carmel, when the authority 
of Elijah was confirmed, and the priests of Baal con- 
founded ; or that when Daniel was saved from the power 
of the flames, has an effect in convincing men of the being 
and power, justice and retributive judgment of God, even, 
perhaps, greater than all his glory, seen in the uniform 
succession of natural events. 

Let it not be said, then, that a miracle is impossible, 
because it is a violation of the laws of nature, or of the 
divine immutability. It is a violation of no law, natural 
or moral. A suspension of, or deviation from, the strict 
uniformity of the order of the divine operation in nature, 
it is, in obedience to the divine will, to fulfil the great, 
original law of His eternal purpose. 

2. The objection to miracles, on the ground of the strict 
'uniformity of the order of nature, is made under another 
form, which derives great influence from circumstances 
of the age. Such have been the amazing advances of 
science, and the results developed in its progress ; so many 
things have been brought to light by its researches, which 
preceding generations would have pronounced impossible, 



M A S 0 N. 



Ill 



and jet which are evidently in perfect harmony with the 
known laws of nature; that the impression is awakened 
or confirmed in many minds, disposed to sceptical doubt, 
that even the miracles recorded in the Scriptures may be 
traced to some natural law yet to be discovered. Nature 
also is full of wonders which obey no discoverable law, and 
which minds of a credulous tendency are inclined to regard 
as supernatural. The most astounding facts, from time to 
time, come under the observation of honest and discerning 
men, for which, it is affirmed, no experience of the laws 
of nature will account. Shall we, therefore, regard these 
as miraculous ; or not rather distrust our knowledge and 
sagacity, and patiently wait, till time, giving opportunity 
for wider, closer, and more scientific observation, shall dis- 
close the mystery, and reduce these wonderful facts to 
some law, either already known, or yet to be ascertained ? 
Certainly so, will be the reply. Why, then, may not the 
same be said of all things regarded as miraculous ? 

Such is a mode of reasoning now common, or gradually 
taking: form in many minds. Its influence is felt in weak- 
ening the effect of the appeal to miracles, as evidence of 
the divine authority of Christianity. It tends either to 
confirm that credulity, which destroys the value of the 
miracle, as a distinctive and appropriate evidence of reve- 
lation, or that scepticism which doubts its reality. 

Now, all such reasoning rests upon the facts of our igno- 
rance of the limits of what is possible within the laws of 
nature, and of the inexplicable character of many things 
which come under observation. But, does it follow that, 
because I am ignorant of the utmost limits of the possible 
within the domain of natural laws, and whether certain 
observed facts are also within their range, that there are 
no instances in which it may be perfectly evident that 
those limits are exceeded, and no facts which I can be sure 



112 



ON MIRACLES. 



cannot be accounted for by any natural law. We may be 
doubtful in many cases, and yet have reason for entire cer- 
tainty in others. There may be such a vast and palpable 
disproportion between an effect, and any result of the 
operation of natural laws, as to be a perfect proof of a 
miraculous work. It may be doubtful to many, whether 
the magicians of Egypt, who attempted counter works to 
those of Moses, were permitted to perform actual mira- 
cles ; but it can never be doubted by any who allow the 
fact, that when Moses stretched out his rod, and all the 
waters in Egypt — in their streams, their rivers, their ponds, 
their pools — thereupon became blood, that a law of nature 
was suspended, and a change w r as produced, which was not 
in accordance with any such law ; or that, when he 
stretched his hand towards heaven, and from that moment, 
for three successive days, thick darkness covered all the 
land of Egypt, the effect was miraculous. The laws of 
nature will indeed account for many most wonderful things, 
which for a long period remained unexplained ; and many 
strange and mvsterious events mav now occur, for which 
no principle of science will account ; and it still be as true 
now, as it was eighteen centuries ago, that if a person, 
unquestionably dead, should be restored to life, there would 
be a miracle of divine power. No suggestion about the 
marvels of science, the possible effects of occult powers 
of nature, or of the strange and unaccountable agencies at 
work among men, could in the least degree invalidate the 
conclusion, that there is a wide and palpable distinction 
between all such effects, and the restoration of a dead man 
to life. 

The same observation may be applied to the case of 
many other miracles of the Saviour; such as restoring 
sight to those born blind, and hearing to the deaf; the 
vigour and freshness of health to the paralytics and lepers, 



M A S 0 X. 



113 



by a word or a touch ; or the feeding of five thousand with 
five loaves and two small fishes, so that all had enough, 
and yet twelve baskets of fragments remained. If these 
facts be admitted, the certainty of their miraculous nature 
can be affected by no reasoning such as we have described. 

The miracles attributed to our blessed Saviour, with few 
exceptions, do so manifestly transcend all effects produced 
in accordance with natural laws ; are so entirely discon- 
nected with any suspicious circumstances or processes 
of art; as to make the widest distinction between them, 
and any cases in which the power, to which a peculiar and 
wonderful effect must be attributed, is doubtful, or incapa- 
ble of beins; ascertained. 

3. There is another point, which, in this connexion? 
should receive attention. Because miracles are possible, and 
consistent with the divine perfections, and have been per- 
formed to fulfil the purposes of divine wisdom and mercy 
in creation and redemption, it cannot, therefore, be assumed 
that there is an obligation even to examine every claim, 
which may be made to the possession of supernatural 
powers, on the ground of the production of inexplicable 
works. If such were the case, every accomplished juggler, 
or person deeply versed in the mysteries of natural science, 
might demand the solemn and continued attention of man- 
kind in general, until the secret power at work could be 
detected. While, upon such a supposition, miracles would 
be utterly valueless as a means of conviction, because of 
their supposed frequency ; so, also, such works are unde- 
serving attention — as presenting claim to supernatural 
origin — on account of their comparatively trivial and 
unimportant ends. As the stability of nature is the 
appointment of a God of infinite perfections, and upon it 
most momentous interests of mankind depend, that very 
trust in the power and providence of God, which leads to 
15 



114 



ON MIRACLES. 



the conviction of the possibility of miracles, and their 
effect, also assures us, that a suspension of the order of 
nature would be permitted only for the greatest and most 
elevated ends, and when the necessity for such interposition 
was exceedingly urgent. It is an argument of great weight 
— preparatory to the direct examination of testimony in 
favour of the reality of the miracles of Christianity — that 
it can be shown that the end, professedly designed by 
them, was worthy of the infinite God, and of importance 
and necessity to mankind, beyond the power of language 
to express ; that, when we contemplate the fruitless specu- 
lations of the wisest of mankind, in regard to those great 
subjects most closely connected with the character and 
all the highest hopes of man, and the actual state of deep 
darkness and guilt which, before Christ came, covered the 
whole world, we can show the supreme necessity of a reve- 
lation from God by direct interposition. That miracles 
were, in themselves, worthy of their divine author, and for 
an end in harmony with his perfections, and essential to 
the happiness and holiness of mankind, can be made evi- 
dent. And when the contrary of all this is apparent in 
regard to works which may demand attention as superna- 
tural, the absence of any great and worthy end, renders it 
alike the dictate of common sense and reverence for God, 
to withhold attention from such claims. 

4. Attention will now be directed to another theory, by 
which much of the scepticism of the day in regard to mira- 
cles is fostered, and by which both their reality and value 
are discredited. The most prominent advocate* of this 
theory in this country, who takes the title of a Christian 
minister, while he disparages and ridicules the positive 
institutions of the Gospel, thus presents, in substance, his 
system : — 

* Theodore Parker, 



M A S 0 N. 



115 



a All that is true in Christianity is a truth of absolute 
religion. The truths of absolute religion are easily known, 
for they are matters of intuition. Absolute religion an- 
swers exactly to the religious sentiment in man. This 
religion is eternally true, before revelation, after revelation. 
Jesus fell back on the moral and religious sentiment in 
man, uttered their oracles as the Infinite spoke through 
them, taught absolute religion, absolute morality, nothing 
less, nothing more. Thus, Christianity being eternally 
true, is a matter of direct and positive knowledge, dependent 
on no outward testimony. Its great doctrines and precepts 
were known long before Christ. The only authority of 
Christianity is its truth, and miracles can add nothing 
to it." 

Such is a theory which has great influence with many. 
It has no claim to originality, but is a repetition of very 
old infidel reasoning. It has, however, coloured the writ- 
ings of some who do not doubt or deny the fact of miracles, 
but who hold them to be of little importance in connexion 
with religious truth. 

In all the statement which we have given there is no 
denial of Christianity, according to the writer's view of it. 
He professes to be a Christian. But Christianity, according 
to his theory, is just so much of the teaching of the New 
Testament as corresponds with his standard of absolute 
religion. The ideal standard is made the measure of the 
actual truth in Christianity. So much of the Saviour's 
teaching as he finds accordant with his ideal of absolute 
religion is true, and no more. The only authority of Christ 
and his Gospel is, then, to be sought in the intuitive sen- 
timent or judgment of mankind. 

But how do I know that those sentiments, or ideas, 
which I regard as intuitively determined to be absolute 
truth, are indeed the intuitive sentiments of man ? How 



116 



ON MIRACLES. 



can any man, " sunk in ignorance, precipitated in sin," 
arrive at the assurance that his supposed intuitive impres- 
sions in regard to the most elevated moral and spiritual 
truth are in reality such ? 

If man were perfectly pure and holy, his mind and heart 
unbiassed and uncorrupted by sin, the case might be differ- 
ent. But that his actual state, as weak and unholy, cor- 
rupted throughout by sin, should not distort his moral 
vision, is impossible. The idea of what is called absolute 
religion, supposes at least a being who retains the original 
moral sentiments of human nature in their purity. Will 
the author of that statement maintain that a Hottentot, or 
a Thug, who practises habitually the vilest vices, and com- 
mits, without a scruple, the most awful crimes, even with 
a conviction of duty, can or does know, by intuition, abso- 
lute moral and religious truth, that which makes up 
Christianity in his view? Is it possible, in view of the 
actual state of such a being, that he should form the con- 
ception of any such perfect standard of absolute truth? 
Perhaps there may remain in all men some vague, indis- 
tinct impression of the being of one God. But can it be 
maintained, that the intuitive impressions of all men reveal 
to them the sublime moral perfections of that Being whom 
they are to love and worship ? Can the Hottentot, in his 
degraded, besotted state, know, by an intuitive process, the 
nature of God, and the worship acceptable to Him ? Will 
not his conception of the Divine Being be affected by his 
own moral state ? 

The sentiment or idea is of a moral kind, and must par- 
take of the defects of the moral vision. Can his intuitive 
impression of the perfections of God, and that of a Christian, 
correspond, and if not, how can it accord with absolute 
truth ? It is an observation as true as it is common, that 
the infidel borrows his ideas of God and right morals from 



M A S 0 N. 



117 



the Gospel, and then uses them to weaken its authority. 
He cannot rightly argue that, because he finds such ideas 
in his mind, they are therefore intuitive, and absolutely 
self-evident to mankind. 

There are, I repeat, probably in all men, some general, 
indistinct impressions of an intelligent power above nature. 
But whether that power be one personal being or many ; 
and what moral attributes belong to such being or beings ; 
unaided human reason has never made known to man. 
Now the love and worship of any being must be attended 
with entirely different moral effects, according to the differ- 
ent impressions entertained of his nature, character, and 
will. And the very love and worship of a being may be 
the source of increased moral corruption. With great truth 
it has been observed, "we are so accustomed to contemplate 
God as invested with all those paternal and perfect moral 
attributes with which Christianity clothes Him ; to see 
Him in that attitude of holy sovereignty and paternal 
goodness in which it represents Him; that this perfect 
combination of moral attributes, this completeness of moral 
character in the Sovereign of the universe, such that we 
should as soon think of adding to infinite space as of adding 
anything to its perfection, seems as a matter of course, and 
we do not remember how difficult it must have been to 
carry out the fragmentary revelation of nature to its abso- 
lute completeness, and to combine with these tremendous 
natural attributes, shadowed forth in the agencies of nature, 
the benignity and mercy, the justice and compassion, that 
form the character of our Father in heaven. 

We forget the distressing perplexity in which the greatest 
and best men of antiquity were respecting the moral attri- 
butes of God, and the important fact that they never so 
conceived of Him as to make the love of God a duty."* 



* President Hopkins. 



118 



ON MIRACLES. 



Again, it may be true that there is implanted deeply in 
the being of man, an instinctive tendency pointing to a life 
beyond the grave ; and some faint, obscure, uncertain an- 
swer may have been given by natural reason to the inquiry 
of the patriarch Job, "If a man die shall he live again?" 
But what that life would be, whether remembrance and 
conscious identity would remain, whether the soul would 
not migrate into some other body, whether there would be 
a just recompense and retribution, were questions which 
could not be and were not answered by natural reason. 
Yet, again, it is a universal fact, that all men are sinners, 
and of this, a state of their own being, they are conscious. 
But how man, thus conscious of sin and guilt, could be 
redeemed from their power ; how he could be absolved, if 
there were a just God and Judge of the world; conscious- 
ness did not, and could not determine. The evidence of 
this is seen in the monstrous superstitions and abominations 
of all heathen systems of religion. 

Abstract reasoning upon such questions is of little value 
to show what man might know of absolute religious truth. 

The only inquiry of practical moment is, what were the 
results arrived at upon such subjects before Christianity 
prevailed, and what are the results now where it is not 
known, nor its influence in any degree felt. We need not 
dwell upon the overwhelming evidence drawn from the 
state of the ancient pagan world, and that of heathen 
people of the present day, to show how heaven-wide the 
ideas of the Divine Being, of the perfections of His nature, 
of the worship due to Him, of His will, of the immortality 
of man, of the means of securing the Divine favour, and 
freedom from the dominion and consequences of sin, were, 
and, under such circumstances, still are, from the sublime 
truths of Christianity. 

As to the means of redemption, the pagan world was in 



M A S 0 N. 



119 



utter darkness. The minds of men, disturbed by conscious 
guilt and superstitious fear, saw no way of escape from the 
bondage of sin, and of securing the pardon of a righteous 
God. 

Even if some of the greatest sages, whose wisdom en- 
lightened some pagan lands, rose, in favoured moments, to 
lofty speculations upon the nature of God, the immortality 
of the soul, and the principles of moral duty, yet as they 
arrived at no conviction of certainty, and were destitute 
of all means of transforming power, so were they incapable 
of authenticating the truths upon which they speculated 
to the world, of establishing them in the general mind and 
heart. Even Socrates, at death, spoke of immortality with 
uncertain, hypothetical expressions ; and enjoined upon 
his friends, as a dying request, to sacrifice a cock to iEscu- 
lapius. Such is the highest certainty of the human mind 
upon absolute religion, without revelation, which renders the 
latter needless, and authorizes unbelief, while beholding the 
truth under the full and glorious effulgence of the Sun of 
Kighteousness, vainly to boast that all the light which 
illumines the path of man proceeds from the taper of hu- 
man reason ! Surely we need no higher evidence of the 
necessity of a Divine revelation ; and of some positive 
means of establishing its truths, with a certainty above 
that which fallible, depraved human nature can inspire, 
and upon a foundation which its doubts, its cavils, and its 
blind presumption can never destroy. 

Let our thoughts now be given to other views of the 
subject, which tend more directly to confirm and elevate 
our faith in "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." 
While the evidence of the particular miraculous works, 
connected with the origin of Christianity, depends upon 
historical testimony, which loses some effect by the lapse 
of time, there are other miracles whose influence is con- 



1^0 



ON MIRACLES. 



firmed by time — is greater now than in the Apostolic age 
— and which probably produce upon the minds of men in 
general the most powerful impression in convincing them of 
the divine origin of our holy religion. These may be 
called the permanent, standing miracles of the Gospel. 
Christianity, in its very being, involves miracles. 1. The 
Saviour, in his own nature and person, was a miracle, sur- 
passing all others in majesty, such as made all the other 
miracles performed by him seem only the natural works 
of such a being. 

Infidelity, by its subtle and ingenious objections, may 
disturb the faith of some in particular branches of the 
external proof of the miraculous origin of Christianity; 
but, it can never deprive man of the character of Christ, 
recorded in the Gospels, and this bears to every truthful 
mind the impress of a divine reality. That character will 
remain in the Christian world for ever, receiving the 
homage of the wisest, and greatest, and holiest men of all 
ages and lands, as the image of absolute perfection. And 
as the reality was supernatural, so the conception and 
invention of such a character, under the circumstances 
which it implies, exceed the possible bounds of the human 
mind. Upon this point there is a singular agreement of 
testimony. Infidel philosophers, worldly men of the great- 
est acknowledged sagacity and power of mind, and the 
most devoted Christians, here unite in one consenting voice. 
Rousseau spoke with contempt of the pretence of compari- 
son of the life and death of Socrates — the greatest of pagan 
sages — with those of the Son of God; and declared, that 
if Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, the life and 
death of Jesus Christ were those of a God. 

The memorable words of Napoleon were, " I know man, 
and I tell you that Jesus Christ was not a man." Before 
Jesus Christ, the greatest sages, statesmen, lawgivers, phi- 



MASON. 



losophers, and moralists, as well as the most exalted saints, 
bow in reverence and awe, and, with one consent, confess 
the superhuman majesty and loveliness of his character. 
Here, then, independent of any particular miracles ascribed 
to the Saviour, is a great, comprehensive, moral miracle, 
around which all the others may be said to revolve, always 
before our view, and impressing us with the conviction that 
Christianity was not of human or finite origin. 

The same impression is confirmed, when we contemplate 
the teaching, the claims and design of the Saviour. When 
we consider the circumstances of his earthly birth, among 
an obscure people, separated by a wall of bitter and 
inveterate prejudice from the world — looking with pity 
and contempt upon all others, as shut out from the favour 
of heaven ; when we consider, also, His condition — that 
of being despised among His own brethren, trained in no 
human learning, and having for His chosen associates the 
poor and illiterate — and then dwell upon the doctrines and 
precepts of Jesus, we are compelled to believe that these 
can be accounted for by nothing less than their superhuman 
origin. A system of practical morality, springing from one 
all-comprehensive principle, to which no approach can be 
found in any preceding teaching of man ; in which every 
duty, every spiritual grace, even every refined and elevated 
emotion or sympathy, meet for any possible relation, condi- 
tion, or circumstance of life, are included; a system 
changing essentially the highest actual moral standard of 
the world, by condemning, as vices or wrongs, what were 
regarded as exalted virtues, and placing in the rank of virtues 
or graces, what were regarded as weaknesses or defects ; a 
system rising above all local and transient influences — 
alike adapted for all persons, in all stations, in all countries, 
and through all ages ; which realizes all that the human 
mind imagines, or the heart and conscience demand, as 

1G 



122 



ON MIRACLES. 



perfect in morals, ever rising higher than the utmost prac- 
tical approach to perfection of character ever attained by 
individuals in their striving after exalted virtue — such a 
system carries with it the evidence that it did not originate 
with man. It is, in itself, another great moral miracle, 
which alone has convinced the greatest among men that 
the religion of J esus is supernatural and divine. 

It has, indeed, often been affirmed by infidels, that there 
is no one of the precepts of Christ which cannot be found 
in some pagan writer of a preceding age. But, even if 
this were not a gratuitous assertion, without proof, it would 
deserve little weight as an attempt to show the possible 
human origin of the Christian system of morals. All the 
colours of the rainbow may be seen separate in nature ; 
but who but the infinite God could combine them in a 
beam of light, or blend them in the glorious arch which 
spans the heavens ? Not less does the perfect combination 
of all virtues and graces, in their due bearing and pnypor- 
tion, which we find in the Gospel of Christ, require an 
elevation, comprehensiveness, and vastness of moral con- 
ception which bear the stamp of divinity. 

The claims and design of the Saviour unite in producing 
the same impression. He claimed to be a perfect, sinless 
teacher of moral and spiritual truth — the Guide, the Lord, 
and Saviour — the life, light, and hope of all the world. 
He calls upon all men to believe in and honour Him, even 
as they believe in and honour the Father. He demands 
their love and obedience as His right. " What,* it has 
been observed, would have been thought of Socrates or 
Plato, if they had not merely taught mankind, but if they 
and their disciples had set up a claim that they should be 
loved by the whole human race with an affection exceeding 



* Hopkins' Lowell Lectures. 



M A S 0 N. 



123 



that of kindred ?" He claimed to be the judge of all men, 
with power to pardon or condemn, and forewarned men of 
the hour when they should be gathered before His throne. 
He formed the design of establishing a universal kingdom, 
with dominion over the hearts and lives of men for ever; 
a kingdom to be introduced by instruments regarded as 
weak and contemptible by men, to be extended in the face 
of all the temporal powers of the world, and solely by 
moral and spiritual weapons. 

Such designs — conceived under such circumstances — in 
their grandeur, in sublime superiority to all the schemes 
ever devised by earthly ambition, in the calm and simple 
majesty with which they were declared, together with the 
meek and lowly character, and humble station of their 
author, bear convincing evidence of their superhuman 
origin. And the result harmonizes with the design. The 
kingdom of Christ prevailed; changed the institutions, 
customs, manners, and spirit of the civilized world ; and is 
still everywhere exerting the power which, like leaven, is, 
in the hope of all, to leaven the whole lump of worldliness 
and sin. This evidence — that of an existing Christianity, 
advancing over the world against such mighty obstacles, 
and against all earthly passions — is appealed to by several 
of the fathers of the church, as conclusive of its miraculous 
origin. And their declaration was echoed by the great 
early poet of Italy, in the " Divina Commedia."* 

* Cary's translation : 

" That all the world, said I, should have been turned 
To Christian, and no miracle been wrought, 
Would in itself be such a miracle, 
The rest were not an hundredth part so great." 



Se '1 mondo si rivolse al cristianesmo, 

Diss' io, senza miracoli, quest' uno 

E tal che gli altri non sono ; 1 centesmo. 



124 



ON MIRACLES. 



But all these evidences that the Gospel of Christ is not 
of this world, receive the highest confirmation from per- 
sonal experience of its power in transforming the soul, in 
which it is received with living faith. The source of unbe- 
lief is the heart, and only when " with the heart man 
believetli unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is 
made unto salvation." When within his own soul man 
feels the power of the Gospel and spirit of his Saviour, 
and Christ has become unto him " wisdom, and righteous- 
ness, and sanctification, and redemption" — the remedy for 
every spiritual disease, the relief for every spiritual want 
of the sinner — the source of the highest consolation, and 
of the only abiding hope — when he knows that through 
Him he is delivered from the burden of guilt and sin which 
is intolerable — death being deprived of its sting, and the 
" dark valley" illumined by that hope which is " full of 
immortality" — then only will all doubts for ever vanish 
away, and his assurance become perfect, that the founda- 
tion on which he stands, by faith, is sure as the " Rock of 
Ages," firm as the being and promises of God. 



Immutitdilifir of ftahmtl f am 



BY RT. REV. ALONZO POTTER, D. D, LL. D. 

BISHOP Of THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



IV. 

IMMUTABILITY OF JSTATUBAL LAWS. 

" All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" (tJte scoffer said). — 2 Peter, in. 4. 

I ASK your attention, this evening, to a few reflections 
on a feature in the science and literature of our day, 
which can hardly have escaped your notice, but which 
seems to me to merit more serious consideration than it 
usually receives. I allude to the disposition, always pre- 
valent, but especially so now, to refer every phenomenon 
and every event, whether it be material or moral, to causes 
purely natural. I allude to that assumption — which will 
be found at the bottom of some of the ablest modern works, 
not only in Physics and Mental Philosophy, but also in 
Natural Theology — the assumption that the order and con- 
stancy, the uniformity in respect to properties, which 
characterizes objects, and the uniformity in respect to se- 
quences which characterizes events, is absolute and unvary- 
ing, being liable to no interruption, either from man in the 
exercise of a self-determining power, or from God in the 
exercise of a miraculous or Providential agency. It is a 
theory of necessity, much bolder and broader than that of 
Edwards, or of others of the same school. That great 
master of metaphysics, while he denied the power of man 
to interfere with the established relation between cause and 
effect, whether such relation be material or mental, whether 
it connect physical forces with their proper effects, or moral 

(1-7) 



128 IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 

motives with their consequent volitions, never called in 
question the fact that God may interpose to suspend or set 
aside these relations. Not so with the philosophers to 
whom we now refer. They insist on a constancy in nature 
which seems to be hardly consistent with any intelligible 
theory, either of miracles or of a superintending Providence, 
while it would appear to leave no room for liberty in man, 
or for evil, physical or moral, in the universe. Thus, some 
of our scientific geologists find no vestige on the earth's sur- 
face of any great catastrophes, read on her monumental 
piles of no supernatural disturbance, nor, indeed, of any 
change or physical revolution in times past, but such as 
can be resolved into the operation of causes now existing. 
By other naturalists this exclusion of the Supernatural is 
extended to plants and animals, and their origin is ascribed 
to the spontaneous development of certain properties and 
laws inherent in inorganic matter; while some of the most 
eminent mathematicians and philosophers of Europe, in 
works too expressly devoted to a vindication of the doc- 
trines of Natural Theology, have attempted to include even 
the miracles recorded in Scripture in the same category — 
as results of natural laws of vast range and comprehensive- 
ness. For example, in his work, entitled the Ninth Bridg- 
water Treatise, Mr. Babbage thus expresses himself, p. 45 : 
" To have foreseen, at the creation of matter and of mind, 
that a period would arrive when matter, assuming its pre- 
arranged combinations, would become susceptible of the 
support of vegetable forms ; that these should, in due time, 
themselves supply the pabulum of animal existence; that 
successive races of giant forms or of microscopic beings 
should, at appointed periods, necessarily rise into existence, 
and as inevitably yield to decay : and that decay and death, 
the lot of each individual existence — should also act with 
equal power on the races which they constitute ; that the ex- 



POT T E K. 



tinction of every race should be as certain as the death of 
each individual, and the advent of new genera be as inevi- 
table as the destruction of their predecessors : — to have fore- 
seen all these changes, and to have provided by one compre- 
hensive law, for all that should ever occur, either to the races 
themselves, to the individuals of which they are composed, or 
to the globe which they inhabit, manifests a degree of power 
and of knowledge of a far higher order" than would be 
manifested, &c. 

" This is, perhaps, of all others, the reflection," says Mr. 
Powell, in his Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth, 
"which, to a thinking and philosophic inquirer, tends most 
to exalt his ideas of the Divine perfections, the regulation 
of all the varied and complicated actions of the material 
world by an unvarying system ; the combination of a lim- 
ited number of first principles producing all the variety 
and harmony of the creation : the sufficiency of a few 
simple laws to regulate the entire complexity of the vast 
mechanism: the first constitution of the world upon a prin- 
ciple which, without further interposition, contains within 
itself the means of perpetual renovation and stability. Now 
this conclusion rests (as we have said) on the collective 
inferences of a real maintenance of inviolable order in 
the material world. It is evident, then, that any event, 
occurring to interrupt the preservation of this order, would 
be a serious exception and formidable difficulty in the way 
of our conclusion." 

To show what sweeping applications of this principle are 
sometimes made by men of science, even when they think 
they are vindicating the divine honour and majesty, I take 
an example from the first of these two writers. In the 
celebrated calculating engine of Mr. Babbage — the noblest 
triumph of mathematical and mechanical skill yet known 
— a machine that is to do, by itself, the work of calculating 
17 



1Z0 IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LA W S. 

the numbers used in astronomical and nautical tables, he has 
found that he can so adjust the parts, that it shall, at any 
future period, though ever so remote, make one or two seem- 
ing exceptions to that law which it has hitherto observed. 
This law, he states, however, is not the full expression of 
that by which the machine acts, but the excepted case is 
as absolutely and irresistibly the natural consequence of 
its primitive adjustment, as is any individual calculation 
amongst the countless multitude which it may previously 
have produced. For instance, the machine can be so 
adjusted as to register only square numbers for thousands 
of years ; and then, in one or more instances, at any given 
time, can register cube numbers, returning at once, how- 
ever, to its previous course. And, since a property so 
w T onderful can be given to a piece of human workmanship, 
it is suggested that what we have gazed upon as miracles 
— as the actual suspensions of natural law — as the mani- 
festations of a present overruling God — as supernatural 
declarations of His ceaseless dominion over man and the 
earth he inhabits — as tokens of His sleepless superintend- 
ence over this race of ours that He hath made, and which 
He will hereafter judge — these, it is suggested, after all, 
are but natural results of decrees established thousands or 
millions of years ago. And so of Providence. It is a Pro- 
vidence exerted in foreseeing, at the first, all possible con- 
tingencies, and in providing for them so perfectly, and with 
a kindness so vigilant, that no occasion for intervention, or 
even for supervision, can ever afterwards arise. And it is 
contended that these are the views best calculated to 
reflect honour on God — to afford exalted conceptions of 
His infinite majesty. 

Now that to such a mind this is the view best calculated, 
as he affirms, to afford exalted conceptions of Divine wis- 
dom and power, we may not doubt; and there may be 



POTTER. 



131 



many minds to whom it appears in the same light. To a 
profound mathematician, employed through long and toil- 
some years in calculating the possible combinations of 
numbers — in devising the adjustments of complicated 
mechanism — in endeavouring to foresee all the disturbing 
causes that can possibly arise — in striving to bring within 
the performance of a machine the greatest possible range 
and compass of results — that such a mind may find itself 
most awed and overpowered when it thinks what must 
have been in the conception of that Eternal Being who, out 
of an infinite number of different laws of gravity which 
might have been selected (as we could easily show), chose 
that one (the inverse ratio of the square of the distance), 
which now obtains and which Newton first discovered, when 
such an one considers how the best intellect of the scientific 
world, for the last two centuries, has exhausted itself in 
tracing out but a few of the consequences of this law — 
and how all its consequences, even the remotest (nor its 
consequences only, but all the possible consequences of 
each one of that infinite number of other laws which 
might have been substituted for it) must have been foreseen 
by Him who gave it preference — when he considers, too, 
that this is but one of innumerable material laws now 
in operation, and whose establishment evinces, in each 
case, a like boundless foresight — -and when to material 
laws he, in thought, adds those which connect matter with 
animal life, and those again that connect both with mind — 
when he thinks of the countless varieties of organized 
beings, living or extinct — how mountain masses have been 
piled up, not only out of petrified animals, but even out 
of dead infusoria so small that forty-one thousand of them 
make but a cubic inch — and then when he conceives that 
the nature, functions, and relations of all these countless 
varieties may have been foreseen and provided for in one 



1S2 IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 

stupendous effort of inventive and creative power, who will 
not admit that here is a noble conception of God — that to 
such a mind, with such habits, it would naturally seem 
the noblest, the most sublime ? 

But is God to be contemplated and adored by none but 
mathematicians ? And are there not, in the Divine nature, 
other attributes besides Wisdom and Power ? Is -there not 
Holiness ? Is there not Kectitude ? Is there not Parental 
Love? When we conceive of Him as a mechanician 
merely — arranging masses of matter — availing himself of 
their pre-existing properties — adjusting them to certain 
uses, how poor, how inadequate, after all, are the noblest 
of such conceptions ! God not only arranged matter — He 
created it. He assigned it its properties — above all he created 
mind. He surrounds himself with intelligent offspring. 
This material framework of nature, these verdant fields, 
these extended plains and towering mountains, these fiow r - 
ing rivers, this expanding ocean ; this grand array of 
forces, and motions, and vicissitudes, all marshalled, as it 
were, in order, and moving forward in harmony : what is 
it all but a dwelling-place for man — the intelligent, self- 
conscious, accountable child of God. And w T hen does that 
God shed forth the effulgence of his glory so brightly on 
our minds, as when we contemplate Him sitting, not only 
high above all the material forces that He hath made, hav- 
ing an immensity that neither the heavens nor the heaven 
of heavens can contain, but sending forth conscious intel- 
ligences as heralds of His moral perfections ? 

Even heathen poets could celebrate the praises of God as 
a Father. And what is our noblest conception of Father ? 
When in our thoughts do we seem most to exalt the rule 
of a w-ise, just, and loving Parent? To what should we 
appeal if w r e w r ere most anxious to commend him to the love 
and reverence of his household ? Would it be merely to the 



POTTER. 



133 



wisdom with which he has devised and established the regu- 
lations of that household ; to the sagacity with which he has 
anticipated every contingency; to the fact that he has per- 
fected such a system that it can dispense altogether with his 
presence and agency, and that he now lives far away from 
the home of his affections, never interposing in its affairs, 
nor sending to it one fresh memento of his care ? No ! we 
ask of a father regard in the first place to the moral welfare 
of his children ; we ask a rule and regimen which will 
contribute to form character, to ennoble sentiment, to 
develop self-control, and nerve with spiritual power. And 
we feel that this needs not only law, but the administration 
of law ; not only rules but influences, and not only these, 
too, but such changes, from time to time, that those rules 
can adapt themselves to emergencies created by the child 
himself in the use or in the abuse of his moral liberty. 

Here, then, as it seems to us, is a sufficient answer to 
Mr. Babbage's theory of miracles; a theory by which he 
would transform them from supernatural into natural 
events. He adopts it, because to him it seems the view 
which best illustrates the wisdom of the Deity. We say, 
in reply, that did the physical system of the world subsist 
alone — by itself and for itself — or were it the dwelling- 
place of beings, not endowed with moral natures, nor with 
faculties essentially progressive, we might assent to this 
opinion. But when we consider this system in its higher 
relations — when we consider it as connected with another 
and a nobler economy, even a moral and spiritual one — 
when we recollect that in assigning laivs to matter and to 
mind, God seems to have had special reference to the im- 
provement of man, in wisdom and virtue — then a gTeat 
question arises. Suppose that those laws of nature have 
failed to lead man to wisdom and virtue : suppose that in- 
stead of inciting him to a faithful cultivation of his powers. 



1£4 IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 

to a course of upright, beneficent, and holy living, to a 
clear recognition of his Creator in the things that he hath 
made, the very constancy of these laws has contributed, 
with other causes, to superinduce a practical atheism, and 
drown men in sensuality and folly. What more likely 
than that this constancy should in such case be arrested ; 
that the same Divine and miraculous power, which estab- 
lished the system, should now suspend it; that, having 
failed to teach man by the natural, he should again invoke 
the supernatural ; that, stupified as men were by the earthly 
and the sensual, they should be startled from their guilty 
slumbers by a voice from Heaven ? This seems to be the 
true theory of miracles, and it involves no impeachment of 
the stability of the Divine counsels, since the same moral 
purpose, which assigned fixed laws and properties to matter 
at first, now requires that, in order to the attainment of 
its own high and beneficent ends, those laws should be sus- 
pended, just as a wise parent, who jjrescribes a course of 
exercises for a child, may revoke or suspend them, the mo- 
ment he finds that they are abused by that child to the 
injury of his health or his morals. 

But some one may say — let it be admitted that it is moral 
disorder, chargeable only on man and on his free moral 
agency, that occasions these deviations in physical laws 
from their accustomed course — why not allow such devia- 
tions to have been appointed before the foundation of the 
world, and why not recognise them wdien they occur, merely 
as necessary and unavoidable results of the physical cha- 
racter, which God impressed at first upon the universe ? I 
answ r er, by inquiring why w r e should adopt this view, thus 
involving some of the plainest parts of the Bible in ambi- 
guity ? If natural theology have its own proper evidence, 
so has the Bible also; and, in choosing between different 
views of miraculous interposition, neither of which can 



POTTER. 



1C5 



claim demonstrative evidence, it is, surely, not too much to 
ask that some respect should be paid to clear and explicit 
declarations of the Sacred Books — declarations which point 
to miracles as direct interpositions of the Almighty, as set- 
ting aside natural laws and forces, in order to proclaim His 
immediate presence, and His active supremacy. Waiving 
this, however, let me ask if God is one who would be wea- 
ried if He gave constant attention to the great structure 
which He once made, and which He launched on boundless 
space, its native element ? Or, would it derogate from His 
greatness, though with a father's eye, and all a father's 
heart, He should continually bend over His intelligent off- 
spring, and interpose when necessary to save them from 
themselves — from the appropriate fruits of their folly or 
their guilt ? No : concede to man so much of moral 
freedom that he can sin, and then you may easily represent 
to yourself an awful moral crisis, which would not only 
justify, but also require, these miraculous suspensions of 
law; and thus, while blessed spirits, beneath brighter 
heavens, may be permitted to behold in new worlds, as 
they rise spontaneously into being, proofs of the Eternal 
Power and Godhead, man, the perverse — the erring — 
the sinful — may need to be rebuked by laws disturbed — by 
elements convulsed — by catastrophes that seem to attest 
the utmost displeasure of that God whose wrath is con- 
suming lire. 

But again it may be said, that though such a reason or 
final cause for miracles may be assigned with plausibility, 
in respect to those which occurred after man was introduced 
upon the globe, yet it can hardly apply to those great phy- 
sical vicissitudes which preceded that event, and which we 
are accustomed to regard as supernatural. I reply, that since 
clear memorials of those vicissitudes have been engraven 
on the rocks and hills, they do present to the student of 



1EG IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 

nature an instructive lesson, in respect to the supernatural, 
since they lead him back from one memorable era to 
another — each anterior to the existence of man upon the 
earth — and yet each illustrated by the exercise of God's 
creative and miraculous power. 

Independent, too, of the confirmation yielded by these 
records of Creation to the records of Revelation, they teach 
the further instructive lesson, that the Providence of God 
is truly a superintending providence — that it did not ex- 
pend itself in one effort of power and foresight — that, hav- 
ing interposed in ages past one after another display of its 
creative energies, those energies are to be regarded as ever 
active, and that man is to feel that the power in which he 
lives and moves, and has his being, is as sleepless in vigi- 
lance as it is exhaustless in kindness and unfailing in 
rectitude. 

I cannot dismiss this branch of the subject without say- 
ing one word of the entire nullity of miracles as a ground 
of evidence, if they are only preordained results of physical 
law. In such case, not only would the language in which 
they are described in the Bible be deceptive, but those who 
wrought them would, in one important sense, be impostors, 
and the miracles themselves a fraud. They are now 
supposed to attest the agency of God in a supernatural 
manner; but this theory makes them merely natural. 
They come before us in the Bible, claiming regard as spe- 
cial signs and messengers from heaven; but if Mr. Bab- 
bage is correct, neither prophecy nor the fulfilment of 
prophecy — neither prediction of the wonderful works of 
Christ, nor those works themselves, ought to awaken more 
awe, or inspire a deeper sense of God's presence, than the 
daily rising of the sun. All teachers who make God and 
immortality their theme, would be alike divine messengers, 
and would stand precisely on the same level, except as 



POTTER. 



1ST 



some might excel others in the matter of their instructions. 
The same foreknowledge, too, which discerned occasion, 
and the same ordaining power which prepared the way for 
a Jesus or a Paul, may have provided also for a Mahomet 
or a Joe Smith; and tyrant after tyrant, as he rises to 
become the scourge of nations and the terror of mankind, 
would have to be ranked, on this principle, amongst 
apostles, as missionaries of the Most High — preadjusted 
parts in nature's universal plan. 

If plagues and earthquakes break not Heaven's design, 
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline ? 

This may be the philosophy of a rationalizing poet, but it 
is surely not the philosophy of the Bible ; nor can it well 
be his who sees in God a universal, ever gracious, and pro- 
vident Father. 

II. I have thus spoken of the inconsistency of this theory 
of causation, with what would seem to be the true charac- 
ter of God, as gathered both from nature and from revela- 
tion. I come now to speak of its inconsistency with what 
seems to me to be the nature and mission of man. It is 
often said, that belief in the perfect uniformity of nature 
is instinctive in man — that all our experience tends to 
ripen and strengthen this belief ; and that any other sup- 
position would render science impossible, and action but a 
leap in the dark. That belief in the substantial uniformity 
of nature is intuitive, I admit ; and I admit, too, that as 
we extend our acquaintance with the Divine works, we 
often find order and uniformity where once we saw only 
confusion or a supposed interposition from Heaven. But I 
do not conceive that this intuitive belief is a precise measure 
of that uniformity which really exists in nature, any more 
than our instinctive fear of danger or love of pleasure is a 
precise measure of that which, in the one or other of these 

18 



IZ8 IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 

forms, is approaching us. Each serves to admonish us of 
a general fact, and each impels us to ascertain, by obser- 
vation and inquiry, its true character and extent. And I 
would remind those who reason otherwise, and who think 
that, if there were to be any contingency in nature, any 
possibility that the regular succession of cause and effect 
could be interrupted, there would then be an end of all 
science and all systematic effort; to such I would say, 
that to man's mind there must, in fact, always be a vast 
world of contingencies. Whatever may be the case in 
nature, considered absolutely, there is before him, however 
wide the horizon which his knowledge spreads out, an 
untrodden, unseen wilderness beyond; and to him that 
wilderness is crowded with uncertainties. He knows not 
what a clay or an object may bring forth. Let him finish 
the most consummate piece of workmanship. Let <ome 
proud monument, for instance, of nautical architecture, 
like that* which ten years ago attracted the regard of our 
whole nation, be completed. Let it be conducted in tri- 
umph near to that nation's capitol : and there, on its gay 
deck, beneath floating ensigns and a bright sun, to the 
sound of martial music, with banquet all prepared, let the 
highest of the land, the observed of observers, be gathered 
to admire its appliances and equipments, and gratulate 
each other on this noble embodiment of a nation's skill 
and a nation's munificence. Science and art have now 
achieved their utmost; no precautions against danger or 
disappointment have been omitted ; and yet in that master- 
piece there are still contingencies. Some latent disturbing 
cause has eluded observation; and in a moment those 
fearful engines, intended only to be a terror to foes, a 
strong defence to friends, send a cry of horror through 



* The War Steamer Princeton. 



POTTER. 



1E9 



the surrounding throng, prostrate in death some of the 
most honoured of our land, and spread wailing through 
many a happy household. So limited, after all, is man's 
knowledge. He discovers what he calls truth, but it is 
only an approximation, not an exact conformity to things 
as they are. It embraces some, but not all of the objective 
reality. Hence the difference between laws as laid down 
in theory, and as applied in practice. He enlarges the 
boundaries of his intellectual prospect, but it is only to 
find that it connects itself at innumerable points with the 
yet more distant and unknown. And yet he does not 
therefore abandon inquiry. He does not therefore cease 
to reason or to act upon the probabilities of the future. 
He provides for the morrow, though he knows not that 
that morrow's sun will ever rise upon him. He engages 
in the ventures of life, oftentimes when all the chances of 
success are against him. And does he not do well ? To 
omniscience only could all the issues of the future be 
known — all be fixed and certain. To created minds, much 
must ever appear contingent, and yet that much shall not 
prevent them from acting as though it were fixed and 
ascertainable. 

But observe, further, this belief in the uniformity of 
nature, is not the only intuitive principle of the human 
mind. Is there not the sense, also, of the supernatural ? 
the idea, instinctive in man, that there is a jpoicer above 
nature, and that this power is likely, at times, to interfere 
with the ordinary course of events ? Why is it that men 
in the infancy of society are so prone to ascribe unwonted 
phenomena, in the heavens or on the earth, to Deities ? 
Why do they hear the voice of a spirit in the howlings of 
the tempest, or see his form in the clouds ? Why do they 
people every grove, and fountain, and mountain-clift with 
its appropriate divinity ? Is it not the instinctive uprising 



140 



IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 



of the soul towards the invisible and supersensual ? Is it 
not a proclamation sent forth from the innermost recesses 
of our hearts, saying there is more than mere nature, more 
than eye sees or ear hears — more than change follow- 
ing change in one eternal round. There is a power that 
established that order for one wise purpose, and that may 
set it aside for another. There is an eye that does not 
sleep, and an arm that does not tire ; a power that sitteth 
on the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are 
as grasshoppers ; and it ordereth all things according to 
the counsel of its own will. 

This, we say, is the instinctive language of the human 
heart. As there is one intuitive principle that points 
towards Constancy, so there is another that points towards 
a source of change. Both are liable to excess and abuse. 
In the terrors and follies of superstition and fanaticism — 
in the morbid fancy that sees a miracle in every eclipse, 
meteor, or earthquake — a special Providence in every act 
of man or nature — we see the sense of the supernatural 
perverted and abused. But is there no perversion of our 
faith in nature's uniformity ? Whence most of tbe disap- 
pointments of life? Whence the prejudices, the misjudge- 
ments of all ? Whence the visionary schemes of practical 
men — the idle speculations of theorists — the blind and 
braggart confidence which says all things continue as tlmj 
were from the beginning — to-morrow shall he as to-day, and 
much more abundant? Where is the promise of GocTs 
judgments ? tush! he doth not regard; and through such 
confidence what multitudes rush upon their own destruc- 
tion ! All this is but an abuse and misapplication of our 
instinctive faith in nature's constancy — a premature infer- 
ence from the past to the future — from the known to the 
unknown, from what has been, under certain circumstances, 
to what will be under other and different circumstances. 



POTTER. 



141 



Both of these principles, as it seems to me, have an 
important office, as both are liable to perversion. We 
strive to enlighten and enlarge our views of natural causa- 
tion, of the established order and sequences in nature, by 
observation and analysis, by reasoning and experience ; 
and thus we gradually attain to those larger views which 
characterize true philosophy, and are salutary guides in life. 
Should it not be so with the instinctive sense of the super- 
natural ? Should science, in its truest and highest sense, 
hope to advance or to reach a large and comprehensive 
view of things, if it omit all reference to this deep and all 
pervading element in the mind's operations ? Compte, an 
atheist, may contend, as he does, that science tends regu- 
larly to recede from the supernatural till it plants itself on 
the metaphysical ; and from the metaphysical again till it 
rests finally in the physical and positive. From him this 
might be expected. But is this the vein which we should 
expect from the true disciples of Bacon — of one who wrote 
in thiswise in his Confession of Faitli : — "I believe, that 
notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from creating 
since the first Sabbath, yet, nevertheless, He doth accom- 
plish and fulfil His divine will in all things, great and 
small, singular and general, as fully and exactly by Provi- 
dence, as He could by miracle and new creation, though 
His working be not immediate and direct, but by compass ; 
not violating nature, which is His own law, upon the 
creature." 

In respect to Providence, different views, I am aware, 
have been entertained. To some, Providence is but the 
prescience that foresaw, and the preordaining power that, in 
the beginning, provided for every future contingency ; so that 
now the course of things flows on in obedience to nothing 
but inexorable law. But is such the view which meets 
the deep and irrepressible yearnings and convictions of the 



142 



IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 



human soul? Is it only to an inflexible Law-maker that 
that soul cries for relief from the depths of its distress ? Its 
instinctive resort when awful danger threatens to a power 
above nature — its appeal when struggling with fierce temp- 
tation, or with overpowering appetite for spiritual succour 
to some Being that can act directly on the intellect, the 
affections, and the will — its unshaken faith when all things 
seem to be against it, that though the sea roar, and the 
waves thereof are lifted up, there is One, a Father, sitting 
on high, who is mightier, and who doeth all things well ; 
these sentiments — so instinctive and ineffaceable, not learned 
from Scripture, but felt wherever the human heart throbs 
with life and emotion — were they given for nought ? Do 
they point to no corresponding reality ? or is He to whom 
they point one who operates on man only through fixed 
laws and properties, which he never modifies, never over- 
rules, never disturbs ? 

I put the authority of the Bible, here, entirely out ot 
the account. The great and wise men of the world — those 
who have drunk deepest at the wells of uninspired wisdom 
— who have seen, with intuitive glance, farthest into the 
constitution of things, and whose intuitive perceptions have 
been most enlarged and ripened by profound observation 
and reflection on the ways of men and on the course of the 
world's history: what has been their judgment? Have 
they seen in Providence only foreknowledge and foreor- 
daining power exerted in creation ? Have they seen only 
Wisdom and Might employed in establishing an irreversible 
order of events, which is destined to move on for ever 
without superintendence or intervention ? Or have they 
seen in it the supervision of an Infinite Father, w T ho is 
Governor as well as Creator of all His children, who does 
not merely supervise, as spectator, the movements of dead 
mechanism, but, as active guide and director, presides over 
the voluntary agency of intelligent and moral beings; and 



POTTER. 



143 



though he work no miracles in their behalf, yet causes 
established laws and operations to concur and coincide 
in a manner often the most remarkable ? On this point 
let Dr. Franklin answer. No one will accuse him of 
superstition or of an undue regard for the supernatural. 
All will admit that few men ever surpassed him as a shrewd 
observer of life and of human affairs, or as a profound in- 
quirer after the causes and principles that lie at the bottom 
of great events. And what was his language in the Con- 
vention that sat in Philadelphia in 1787 to frame our 
Federal Constitution, when he rose to support his motion 
for daily prayers in that body ? 

It must be remembered that weeks had elapsed with- 
out the convention's having accomplished any part of its 
all-important work, and that irreconcilable differences 
seemed likely to defeat its purposes altogether. It was 
under these circumstances that Dr. Franklin introduced 
his resolution, and made the following remarks: "In the 
beginning of the contest with Britain," said he, " ivlien 
we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this 
room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were 
heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us 
who were engaged in the struggle must have observed 
frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our 
favour. To that kind Providence we owe this happy 
opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of estab- 
lishing our future national felicity. And have we now 
forgotten this powerful friend ? or do we imagine we no 
longer need His assistance ? / have lived, Sir, a long time 
(eighty-one years); and the longer I live the more convinc- 
ing proofs I see of this truth, thai God governs in the affairs 
of man. And, if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground with- 
out His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise with- 
out His aid ? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred 
writings, ' that except the Lord build the house, they labour 



144 IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 

in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this ; and I also 
believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed 
in this political building no better than the builders of 
Babel ; we shall be divided by our little partial local inter- 
ests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall 
become a reproach and a by- word down to future ages. 
And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this un- 
fortunate instance, despair of establishing government by 
human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, or conquest. I 
therefore l3eg leave to move that henceforth prayers, im- 
ploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our 
deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before 
we proceed to business ; and that one or more of the clergy 
of this city be requested to officiate in that service." 

This is not the language of one who looked on God as 
inexorable, or in other words, as a Law-giver whose system 
is that of inflexible uniformity. And to whom were these 
words addressed ? Need I say that it was George Washing- 
ton who presided over this assembly, and that his writings 
are more remarkable for nothing than for their frequent and 
pointed recognition of the agency of the same Divine Pro- 
vidence ? These venerable men had passed together through 
times that emphatically " tried men's souls ;" and it was in 
that hot and fiery furnace that their labouring hearts had 
felt that succour from God was a necessity of our moral 
nature, and that " man's extremity is God's opportunity." 
Or make your appeal, if you will, from the authority of Wash- 
ington and Franklin to that of Shakspeare, the " myriad- 
minded," of whom it hath been said: " The mind of Shak- 
speare was as a magic mirror in which all human nature's 
possible forms, and combinations were present, intuitively 
and inherently, not conceived, but as connatural portions 
of his own humanity." And what, according to him, is 
the language of the human heart, when speaking from its 
deepest convictions ? 



POTTER. 



145 



" Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, 
When our deep plots do pall ; and that should teach us 
There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 

A lesson so deeply imprinted on the poet's own mind, that 
more than one of his dramas seems to have been constructed 
for the express purpose of exhibiting the workings of this 
Divine and special Providence in the affairs of men. 

On this great subject I do not propose to touch any far- 
ther than as it connects itself with the present state of 
science, and with some of its supposed aberrations. As 
there are mathematicians and mechanical philosophers, 
who, in their views of the fixed order of nature, leave no 
place for miracles, so there are mental philosophers and 
anthropologists who seem to leave no place for providence 
or prayer. As an example of the latter, I may mention 
the writings of one well known to you by fame, and of 
whom I would speak as I feel, without the least disrespect. 
I mean Mr. Combe. No candid mind will deny that he de- 
serves, on many accounts, homage and gratitude, as one 
who has done good service to philosophy and to mankind. 
In respect to the very matter under discussion, and in con- 
nexion with which he seems to me obnoxious to censure, 
he has still inculcated with great force, both of reasoning 
and of illustration, important and much-neglected lessons. 
He has taught, especially in his work entitled the Consti- 
tution of Man, that we live under a government of law, 
physical, organic, and mental, which we are bound to re- 
spect, and which it is not safe for us to disregard; "that 
the good and evil of life are much more in our own hands 
than is generally supposed ; that many of the sufferings of 
humanity — sufferings too often considered as fixed by the 
Creator in the constitution of the world — admit of removal 

by a greater knowledge of the laws of nature and a more 
19 



146 



IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 



careful application of that knowledge ; that many of the 
calamities of life, ascribed to an inscrutable Providence, 
may, on careful examination, be traced back to misconduct, 
either in ourselves or in those whom w T e might have influ- 
enced to better things; that an attention to one part of our 
duty w r ill not exempt us from the consequences of neglecting 
another; and, generally, that increased knowledge and vir- 
tue must necessarily draw after them greatly increased 
happiness." These are truths by no means new, yet much 
overlooked, and in urging them on our notice and in setting 
forth the great command which each one has over the 
sources of his happiness, Mr. Combe has rendered a useful 
service to humanity. 

Wherein, then, it may be asked, do w^e dissent from his 
views ? We answer, that we dissent from the fundamental 
idea of his speculations, which seems to assume that there 
cannot possibly be such a thing in the universe as the in- 
terruption of a natural law, and also from the exaggerated 
pictures of man's capabilities, and consequent temporal 
responsibilities which he draw r s. Man, sole master of his 
own destiny, at least in this world, by means of obedience to 
natural laivs, is the sum and substance of Mr. Combe's phi- 
losophy, in the work just referred to, and which is much 
the best he ever wrote. Is it as true and comprehensive a 
philosophy as Shakspeare's, who assigns to man the hum- 
bler office of "rough-hewing his ends," to God the higher 
one of "shaping" them? Who, that traces back his own 
experience, or looks on the world around him, does not see 
an agency, other than man's, when availing himself of 
natural law r s? Who does not see how little way, after 
all, his utmost knowledge of those law r s, or his best obe- 
dience to them, can go towards compassing the good or 
shunning the evils of life ? And where would be the use 
of prayer if all things were ordered by fixed and irreversible 



POTTER. 



147 



laws, that regard not individuals, but have respect to masses 
only ? If nothing can ever accrue to us except through 
such laws moving through one ever-recurring round, subject 
in no respect whatever to modification in themselves or in 
their connexion with other laws, then must every future 
event be absolutely fixed, and prayer to have it altered 
must be a sad masquerade, as deficient in taste as it is in 
ingenuousness. To announce our wants to God cannot 
be its office, for to an Infinite Intelligence they must be 
known already. Nor, if this doctrine be true, can his 
knowledge be of any avail. To importune for special bless- 
ings, temporal or spiritual, would be superfluous, since those 
blessings, if they fall within the onward way of unalterable 
laws, will become ours without prayer, and no prayer can 
procure them if they do not. To exert a persuasive influ- 
ence on the Divine mind is impossible, since that mind is 
inexorable. What, in such case, would prayer become, 
but a species of pious legerdemain, where, under pre- 
tence of pleading with God for that which is no longer His 
to dispense, we gain the chance of communing with his 
spirit, and get grace, not from him, but by a species of 
self-development ? Were such the Divine government, me- 
ditation, not prayer, devout contemplations, not entreaty, 
not intercession, would befit alike man's estate and God's 
eternal majesty. 

But I must conclude. I have succeeded in exploring 
but a part of the ground marked out in the beginning of 
this discourse. Besides the inconsistency of these exag- 
gerated views of the constancy of nature, with any intelli- 
gible theory of miracles or of Providence, I intended to 
have pointed out their inconsistency, also, with the moral 
freedom and responsibility of man, and with the existence 
of evil and disorder in our world. But these points I must 
omit. My object has been to indicate a tendency towards 



148 IMMUTABILITY OF NATURAL LAWS. 

fatalism, which seems to mark some of the developments 
of science, both physical and metaphysical, in our day, 
and which is tantamount, of course, to a disposition to 
exclude the supernatural, as an element, from philosophy. 
It is a tendency unfriendly, as I believe, to the best 
interests of science and of life. It leads to premature 
inductions, and to a presumptuous confidence that, in 
nature, as she now exhibits herself, we have a literal 
transcript of all the past, and a minute circumstantial pro- 
phecy of all the future. It prevents us from remembering 
that all truth reached by induction, when made the basis 
of prediction and of prospective action, is contingent truth ; 
that it becomes us not to say, that on such a day of such 
a year, a certain phenomenon must be observed; but if 
God so will, or if existing circumstances remain unchanged, 
that phenomenon will recur. It gives us, too, — this exclu- 
sive reference to fixed laws, — an extravagant estimate of 
the value of our own knowledge ; leading us to forget that 
any formula, which the most profound philosopher may 
have constructed in order to embody facts, can compre- 
hend, after all, but a portion of the truth, and that there 
are countless facts not yet explained by any philosophy. 
It sometimes contributes, too, to engender, among scientific 
men, a narrowness of mind, which undervalues all other 
pursuits, and looks upon inquiries not pertaining to their 
favourite study, as barren and unprofitable. It is, in fine, 
a tendency which, though most apt just now to infect phy- 
sical science, is still insidiously spreading itself through 
the different branches of mental philosophy and polite 
literature, thus confounding two worlds, the natural and 
moral, which ancient philosophers were most anxious to 
keep asunder ; while its influence in theology will be seen 
in an increasing disposition to eliminate the supernatural, 
as well from the Bible as from Nature. If such be the 



POTTER. 



149 



spirit and tendency of these views, I need not add that 
they must have the effect of obscuring our perceptions of 
God and of His agency — leading us to see Him only in the 
beginning of the system of the universe ; or, if we recog- 
nise a present Divine agency, leading us to view it as an 
agency restraining itself by unalterable laws ; enslaved in 
truth to its own irreversible system, just as the ancient 
poets represent the Gods of Rome as striving in vain to 
save Caesar, when his ruin had been decreed by an invisible 
and irresistible fate — a fate that ruled absolutely over divi- 
nities, as well as over men. Need I add, that, with such 
views of God, there can be little of filial confidence among 
his creatures — little of that life of faith, which, in the 
midst of the world's vicissitudes, is the happiest, as w T ell 
as the noblest of lives ; and little of that love, which, 
casting out fear, is the spring of a cordial, devoted service, 
that is perfect freedom to the soul. 



/ 

BY REV. M. A. DE WOLFE HOWE, D. D. 

RECTOR OF ST. LUKE'S OHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 



V. 



PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 

IT is an obvious truth, from the application and results 
of which no candid believer in revealed religion can 
wish to shield the manual of his faith, that the phenomena 
of the natural world (which are one record of the will of 
God) cannot be contradicted by any authentic written 
record of special, spiritual disclosures from the same 
unchanging source. It is the doctrine of the Bible, that 
there is " one God, maker of all things, visible and invisi- 
ble." And, from the idea of a being possessed of sufficient 
wisdom and power to have fashioned the material universe, 
is inseparable the conviction that he is alike incapable of 
mistake and of falsehood. There must, therefore, be an 
actual harmony between His works and His word. And, 
since nature is the first and undeniable creature of His 
power, and expression of His mind, it must follow that any 
system of doctrine, which purports to be a revelation from 
God subsequently made known, must accord with nature, 
the primitive record. None but the blindest and most 
stupid bigotry will demand, that, if the truths engrossed 
from the beginning on the tablet of material things are in 
contrariety to what seems to be the later disclosure of reve- 
lation, the elder axioms must be at once repudiated as false. 

20 (153) 



154 PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 

Christian believers, however, are bound to take this posi- 
tion — that wherever the investigations of science, so called, 
have conducted men to results which appear to be repug- 
nant to the written word of God, those results, and the 
processes by which they have been reached, require a most 
critical review. And, if still there be seeming discrepancy, 
the common interpretation of Scripture should be carefully 
reconsidered. And if yet, when all is done, there be, with 
general harmony, occasional variation, which we are at a 
loss to reconcile, it is at once manly and devout to assume 
that either nature or revelation has been misunderstood, 
and that riper time and better knowledge will discover 
their unison. 

We may venture to concede that Biblical scholars have 
sometimes maintained a virtual infallibility, not only in 
the Word of God (which is "sure and steadfast"), but in 
their own exposition of it; and that assumptions have 
been put forth as from the oracles of Heaven, which further 
study of truth, in its material and its written forms, has 
proved to have sprung from the ignorance and bigotry of 
recognised advocates of religion on earth. The church did 
imprison Galileo for asserting a theory of the movement 
of the heavenly bodies, which, before his time, had not 
been thought consistent with the language of Sacred Scrip- 
ture. But riper knowledge of nature and a less servile 
study of revelation have, in time, brought the most tena- 
cious adherents of the old cosmology to acknowledge that 
the philosopher was right, and that the sanctity of the 
Bible was not profaned by his discovery. 

With this concession on the one hand, we must be per- 
mitted to urge on the other, that naturalists have often 
made the grossest mistakes in their observations, and 
inferred general laws from data, the soundness of which 
had not been adequately ascertained. They have boldly, 



HOWE. 



155 



I may say insolently, put forth theories, seeming careless 
of their conflict with received, and even sacred truth — 
theories which their more thorough followers in the same 
line of research have proved to be visionary, and incom- 
patible with true science. 

It is a comfort to the Christian to find, on reviewing the 
history of natural science, so far as its record still remains, 
that, while every period has been agitated by some fancied 
discovery which, for the time, seemed to discredit some 
declaration or allusion of Holy Writ, in longer periods these 
threatening contradictions have either been withdrawn, or 
superseded, or modified, or explained ; insomuch that there 
is not now an opinion held among natural philosophers 
which has icithstood the test of fifty years investigation, by 
students of physical science, that is, in anybody's esteem, at 
variance with the Word of God ! A cliff stretching out into 
the restless sea of speculation, great swelling waves have 
risen and threatened to engulf it, but, when they came 
to beat upon its adamantine front, they have been dashed 
into shivering spray, and then vanished into mist or sub- 
sided into the common level. 

They who love the Bible have nothing to fear, but rather 
everything to hope, from actual discoveries of the laws of 
nature. Definitive results of investigation, once settled, 
and commanding the suffrage of true scholars, will, here- 
after, as heretofore, yield themselves as evidence that in 
the Word of God is an outline, strictly exact, of the method 
of His works. Still, sciolists will follow one another in un- 
broken succession, "for there is a spirit in man," though 
fallen, and the "inspiration of the Almighty giveth them 
understanding." 

The mind of man, instinctively seeking the cause of all 
things (that the heart may pay homage), is diverted from 
the true object of its search by pride, the earliest and most 



156 PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 

irreparable frailty of human character. Having discovered 
some antecedents to the present order of things, which are 
not obvious on the face of nature, reason becomes intoxi- 
cated with its draught from these deeper springs of being ; 
and, having gotten back two or three stages nearer to the 
origin of things, it spurns to be taught, by simple precept, 
what lies beyond. It revolts at accepting ultimate truth. 
It yearns to find a physical cause and prototype behind 
every sensible development, and feels circumscribed by the 
abrupt announcement — "God made this." And so, unless 
there be first a thoughtful confidence in the written Word, 
and a fixed habit of devout recognition of the God of the 
Bible, the eager student of natural science, elated with 
discoveries fresh to himself, and utterly unknown to the 
common world, will grow presumptuous, and, by hypo- 
thesis, will endeavour to multiply secondary causes beyond 
the limit of known fact, so that a Creator shall be removed 
so far from the existent, every-day world as to place him 
beyond the reach of practical observance. 

There is a school of philosophers now extant, by no 
means contemptible in regard to talent, learning, or num- 
bers, who are a melancholy illustration of the truth of these 
remarks. They once exerted little influence on the com- 
mon mind, because their writings were too strictly scientific 
and technical to be read with interest or appreciation, by 
any save those who had already made some research into 
the same branch of study. But, within the last ten years, 
their notions have been popularized, and made part of the 
staple of common infidelity, in an ingenious but fallacious 
work, which has been extensively read, and, with rare cre- 
dulity, accepted. I refer to a book entitled " The Vestiges 
of the Natural History of Creation."* It avows no opposi- 



* I am happy here to record the declaration of a ripe scholar, who honours 
the chair of Natural Philosophy in one of our universities, that the assumptions 



HOWE. 



157 



tion to the Mosaic account of the creation ; it speaks reve- 
rently of the God of the Bible ; lapses into no direct denial 
of the revealed doctrine of Divine Providence; but puts 
forth some facts, more assumptions, and resulting theories, 
in such forms as cannot be held consistently with submission 
to the authority of the Bible. In regard to the planetary 
sy stem, it dignifies, what Sir William Herschell hinted at as 
a bare hypothesis into a positive, settled theory, to wit, that, 
inasmuch as with a telescope of moderate power, certain 
nebulge or luminous clouds could be discovered floating in 
distant space, these are incipient planets, and that the side- 
real heavens, which now sparkle over our heads, were all 
fashioned by the gradual condensation of such diffused ma- 
terial. The supposed facts on which this hypothesis was 
built have been sensibly shaken, if not totally removed, by 
more recent discoveries. The great telescope of Lord Rosse 
has resolved some of these nebula) into clusters of shining 

of the author of " The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" are not 
now sustained by any respectable body of scientific men ; that the reviewers 
exposed the spurious facts and unsound positions of that impertinent book so 
fully and severely, that the deductions of science have since manifested 
rather a bias in the opposite direction. I am glad if true scholars repudiate 
it. Christian philosophers always have. I am not, however, dispossessed of 
the apprehension that there are many individuals who purport to be scholars, 
that find it convenient to propound the grossest fallacies of the book under con- 
sideration, as if they were established philosophical facts. Everybody knows 
that there is, in this country, a class of smart men, who dish up much of our 
literature, that are neither devoid of education, nor yet, in the highest sense of 
the word, scholars — men who do more to tincture the public mind than their 
more profound superiors, from whom they borrow just as much science as they 
can get without trouble, and make sufficient to secure a reputation with the 
reading public. They are the "jobbers" of the world's scientific commerce. 
While they bring nothing new among us, they find out what there is, and take 
and distribute what they can make profitable. Among these men, the type of 
opinion which I have here endeavoured to confute, is quite current, and from 
them it is taken to "retail" by their smattering readers, or my eyes and ears 
are both at fault. 



158 



PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 



spheres. And science dare not assert, at this hour, that 
they are not systems of stars, like our own, revolving round 
their appropriate centres. Sir John Herschel, pursuing the 
sublime studies which, before his day, made the name of 
his house illustrious, has not ventured to endorse the hy- 
pothesis of his honoured sire, but waits the result of his 
observations in the southern hemisphere, before he will 
presume to agitate the world by theories of its history. 

In regard to the animal system, the bold author of the 
" Vestiges" has broached a similar scheme of development. 
With his speculative predecessor, Lamarck, he asserts the 
earliest organic form to have been the globule, and assumes 
it to be possible, that, by galvanism, animal life can be 
imparted — an assumption which no well-authenticated experi- 
ment can be adduced to sustain ! Beginning with this insin- 
uation respecting the origin of organic and animate being, 
the author proceeds to declare, that all forms in nature, 
living and dead, have been gradually developed from a 
primitive, crude, and imperfect state, and that the higher 
orders of animal life have succeeded by regular gradation 
from those which were inferior in organization.* Geologi- 
cal discovery does, indeed, disclose that, in successive 
periods, there have been successive races, perhaps I may 
say, orders of animals. And it may be conceded that, in 
those remote and formative periods in the history of our 
globe, of which its foundation rocks are the only record, 
there was an adaptation of living creatures to the imper- 
fect abode in which they were placed, as there is now a 
like adaptation to its improved condition. But it is not 
true that there is such organic relation discoverable between 
the primitive, secondary, and tertiary forms of animal life, as 
to justify the assertion, that the latter were mere developments 

* This, too, is but a speculation, which finds no sufficient warrant in the 
record of nature. 



HOWE. 



159 



of the former. There has not been that uniform improve- 
ment in all the orders of animal being, which would favour 
the idea of a progressive, philosophical, self-adjusting growth 
of nature to its present scale of advancement, and which, 
once established, would give place to the theory which a 
modern German philosopher* of the same school has boldly 
put into words — " The eternal is the nothing of nature." 
" There exists nothing but nothing, nothing but the eter- 
nal." "Keal and ideal are no more different from each 
other than ice and water." 

In a discourse like the present, it would be impossible to 
give extended extracts from the writings of these authors, 
and neither the time, the occasion, the place, nor the 
speaker, would be fit for entering upon a detailed and 
critical notice of the scientific observations on which these 
bold theories rest.f I am the more willing to omit the 
recital of these things, because there is such an appetency 
in the human mind for whatever may help it to be sceptical, 
that the confutation of speculative follies, though it were 
triumphant, and the disproval of alleged facts, though it 
were annihilating, would lapse from the minds of many 
hearers, while the evil suggestions of infidelity would 
remain. I shall attempt, therefore, but to present a few 
of the moral and rational considerations which oppose 
themselves to the scheme of modern materialists. 

The briefest outline of their theory, which with justice 
I could sketch, is now before you. On the one hand, you 
have seen that it begins by ignoring the Creator, as one 
immediately concerned in the fashioning of anything as it 

* Okin. 

f For full exposure of the inaccuracy in fact, and unsoundness in philoso- 
phical deduction, which characterize the writings of these men, see Professor 
Sedgwick's "Discourse on the Studies pursued at the University of Cam- 
bridge." 



160 PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 

now exists. It interposes between us and him such an 
interminable series of second causes, and removes him to 
such a remote period in the dim ages of the past — it tapers 
off the material universe to such an infinitesimal and un- 
defined shape, before it associates it with the hand of God — 
that nothing is left of the incipient world or its Creator 
conceivable by man, which renders it revolting to his moral 
sense to say, " The Eternal is the nothing of Nature !" 

On the other hand, the modern materialist not only finds 
his dynamic forces essentially existent in matter, but he 
presents them as capable of producing all those phenomena, 
intellectual and moral, which ever are seen embodied in 
man, the noblest organic form. Galvanism, which those 
living contradictions, credulous sceptics, persuade them- 
selves can produce life in certain gelatinous globules, it is 
assumed can produce thought and emotion by action on the 
nervous system of man. And thus all spiritual being is 
expurgated from the Universe ; — no father in Heaven, no 
child on earth — but a dull, sluggish ball reeling in space — a 
concrete cloud, gradually perfected into a habitable world, 
and then developing out of its own substance, by a slow 
accession of ennobling qualities, sentient and responsible 
man. 

It may not be amiss to remark at this stage of our 
subject, that though God and the soul are thus practically 
and for all religious purposes removed from the recognition 
of the materialist, yet logically the existence of neither is 
thrown into doubt. For if we grant that the universe has, 
in its organic and its animate forms, grown to what it is by 
slow and regular development, yet the more unpromising 
the germ or egg from which it sprang, the more wondrous 
and complicated the latent power with which it was at first 
endowed. A designer, infinite in wisdom and boundless in 
power, must still be presupposed, or how could that inert 



PI 0 W E. 



161 



and insufficient, and sluggish matter have been impregnated 
with such manifold and curious issues ? Reduce nature if 
you can, like a mathematical quantity, to its lowest terms, 
and in the same proportion you make it comprehensive of 
greater power — you widen the difference between that 
original teeming something and the nothing that lies 
beyond it ! 

Suppose we could follow back the process of creation 
step by step, which the materialist says has been slowly 
and steadily developing out of a crude and chaotic state, 
through countless ages, and that these gradations were 
regular, and after a common law of sequences, up to the 
first germination of the world-seed ; yet the next move in 
our backward research would launch us into an abyss wider 
and deeper than the whole reach from the pregnant masses 
of primeval chaos to the luxuriance, and beauty, and 
mechanism, and life of the world that now is. Oh, the 
immensity of difference between nothingness and matter, 
however rude and shapeless, yet, according to the theory 
with which we are now dealing, instinct with the power 
of organism, and capable of development into life and 
thought and moral sentiment ! A God were still in 
demand to have made the first material, though it were but 
a dim nebula floating in space, and to have infused it with 
those attributes of development by which it has attained 
to its present condition ! But, my hearers, a God whose 
existence is to be proved by an intricate process of logic, 
who is thrust by the impertinence of scientific hypothesis 
out of a present actual universe, and recognised, if at all, 
as creator but of the rough material from which the worlds 
have grown, and that in the inconceivable depths of a past 
eternity, is to the finite mind of man no God at all. The 
faltering soul cannot grope so far to find him. The mecha- 
nism of such a self-existent and parturient world would 

21 



1G2 PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 

engross the admiration and the reverence of the thoughtful, 
and perplexity and indifference would fill the void immense 
between it and its remote first cause. And such has been 
the practical influence of the scheme upon the leading 
scholars who have constructed and promulgated it. 
Lamarck, and Oken, and Comte, advert to no God as a 
being of personal attributes, and the masked author of 
f the Vestiges" would have had less power to injure the 
morals of the reading portion of the community, and would 
not have materially depreciated his own, if he too had 
omitted to speak of a Deity, who is in his regard a mere 
speculation ! 

But this modern type of materialism is to be reprobated, 
not only for its practical removal of the Creator from the 
cycle of time, and the compass of the known universe ; it 
is subversive of any theoretical conceit of a superintending 
Providence. It assumes that all things proceed as they do, 
in obedience to certain determinate laws of development, 
which are inherent in nature ; that the universe goes on 
like a clock wound up, making its successive indications 
without the care or interference of a master's hand ! The 
ideal God who but now, in the process of creation, was put 
so far away, that the soul of 'man was bewildered in finding 
Him at the gray dawn of material being, now appears con- 
cealed into a srim and iron fate which rules without sense 
or variation ! 

There can be no concord between the idea of a reigning 
Deity, bearing the sceptre of command, and a system of 
the universe which invests all things with intrinsic powers 
to combine, develop, and rotate in ceaseless and unfailing 
order. And is it philosophically more probable that insen- 
sate matter, by the energy of its own qualities, evolves 
such complex forms, such wondrous harmonies, such phy- 
sical and spiritual life, than that a supreme mind watches 



II OWE. 



163 



and directs, and an efficient hand fashions, adjusts, and 
modifies the whole ? What faculty of man is better satis- 
fied with a divinity whose only acknowledged act (in a 
period of the past too remote to be reached by the wing of 
the imagination) was the flinging from his creative hand 
the dust which has since condensed itself into spheres and 
systems, and left the Creator an obsolete, superannuated 
power? Surely our complex nature, physical, intellectual, 
and moral, finds not its heavenward aspirations met and 
fulfilled by such a God as this ! Man's soul requires to be 
conscious of subjection in all that concerns him, and the 
globe on which he lives, to a present, superintending, and 
controlling mind. Think you that all the tribes of our 
race would have been found offering sacrifices and worship 
to the great unknown God, if the unsophisticated mind 
could conceive of Him, as enthroned in the deepest recesses 
of a past eternity, and then and there having given to the 
material universe the one and only impulse it should ever 
receive from his omnipotent hand ? A Creator, ruled out 
of the daily government of the realm of nature, by an 
inexorable law of physical sequences, though he made that 
law himself, has no attribute wherewith to enlist the wor- 
ship of mankind. It is essential to our condition, ay, to 
our moral instincts, that we regard our successive experi- 
ences in life, our supplies and our deficiencies, our sorrows 
and our joys, as attributable to the ruling hand and intel- 
ligent disposal of a superior, personal power. We should 
neither obey nor feel the impulse to offer prayer, nor the 
least restraint of moral accountability, of which men in all 
conditions show some living traces, if the God demanded 
by the religious element in our hearts were not a God of 
providence. And the materialist, who conceives of the 
universe as so consummate and nicely adjusted a piece of 
mechanism, in which no want can exist that provident 



164 



PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 



nature with plastic grace of adaptation will not rush to 
supply, is the last man who should leave this fearful gap, 
this yawning hiatus, in the mutual fitness of things unpro- 
vided for ! 

As a philosophical system, the theory of material deve- 
lopment is obnoxious also to this objection: that, pursued a 
little further in the direction of its advocates, it would 
make God rather the eventual result than the first cause 
of nature. 

It propounds, as we have seen, the idea that the wondrous 
system of the universe originated in the nearest possible 
approximation to nothing; that, from such an inception, it 
has gone on developing its inherent resources of form and 
beauty, and production, and life, and thought, and moral 
sentiment ; that man, in all his loftiest faculties, is but an 
improved animal, the progeny of apes at one stage of his 
ancestry, of reptiles still further back, of fishes before, and 
of mere " infusoria" at the first. Now, if such a law of 
progression has been at work through the dim ages of the 
past, what rational objection can be made to the presump- 
tion that it is still, and will be, operative, until perfection 
shall be the issue ? And perfection is another name for 
God. Thus, we have the strange spectacle of a school of 
philosophers, w 7 ho have practically superseded the Deity, 
by maintaining that matter is inherently possessed of all 
his powers — suggesting to a mind which, from their theory 
of the past, dares to look forward and anticipate the future, 
that, although the Infinite did not make the world, the 
world will at length make him. My lips revolt at giving 
utterance to a sentiment so preposterous, so closely border- 
ing on the profane ! But it is best for us, when contem- 
plating a system so insidious as this modern scheme of 
materialism, to look it full in the face, and to mark its most 
odious lineaments. It is instructive to follow out the trail 



HOWE. 



165 



on which we are put, when we join the rovings of men, 
who enlist for scientific research with something less than 
reverence for the Word of God ! The more gross of these 
materialists seem to regard the present state of things as 
the highest stage of development, for Oken has actually 
reduced to language the sentiment, " Man is God wholly 
manifested." If this were true, death must be the extinc- 
tion of man ; for his mental and moral endowments are, 
by the same scheme, only peculiar exertions of his physical 
system, wrought upon by galvanism, the energizing agent 
of nature. When he dies, therefore, inasmuch as no supe- 
rior organization is reproduced out of his material, that 
which distinguishes him as man, to wit, his sentient being, 
is lost. Or suppose we take the more consistent alternative, 
and, assuming that the universe, as it now is, the realm of 
order, and beauty, and life, is the spontaneous development 
of crude, chaotic matter, proceed to infer that higher orders 
of being are yet to be evolved until perfection shall have 
been reached; still, man, according to such a theory, must 
suffer the loss of his individuality. His soul, while he has 
a personal existence, is no spirit dwelling in his flesh as a 
tabernacle ; it is only some function of his body, made to 
manifest itself by the action of one of nature's mechanical 
powers. The transmigration of such a soul is inconceiva- 
ble. The man of to-day cannot find his identity in the 
demi-god of the future, any more than the dull lizard of a 
more primitive age is personally present in the bold natu- 
ralist of our own. 

I remarked, at the outset, that the materialist, though he 
thus attributes thought and moral sense to the nervous 
system, stimulated by galvanism, and so makes them coeval 
with the body, does not logical^ get rid of the existence 
of a human soul, for the soul may be defined as the reason- 
ing and moral faculty of man. He does but define, and 



165 



PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 



limit, and sensualize the mode of its existence. Yet in so 
doing he sets it free from all moral responsibility. He 
puts the name of God so far off in the black depths of the 
past, and, between, introduces so many substantial media 
on the one hand, and so confronts it on the other with the 
impending loss of its identity, that there is felt neither the 
exaction of duty from the one, nor the hope of advantage 
from the other. 

And this introduces us to a yet further objection to the 
scheme of the materialist. It extinguishes all motive in 
man to act answerably to the suggestions of his moral 
sense. The system forbids the apprehension of any judg- 
ment, or the occurrence of any future punishment or 
reward. As there is no immediate lawgiver, no moral 
administrator of government, no spiritual subject, no future 
on which this thinking evanescence, which we have called 
a soul, can count, from what consideration save the seeming 
interests or pleasures of the hour, can spring the impulse 
which shall direct and incite the action of man ? Nay, to 
suppose the law of development, which the materialist pro- 
pounds, to be perfectly triumphant, we must make man but 
one of the little wheels in the mechanism of the universe, 
and his every turn enforced by this complication with the 
moving whole ! Do what he may of good or evil, it shall 
be wrought not by him as an independent moral agent, but 
only through him, by the necessities of time and circum- 
stance. If there be any responsibility allowed under such 
a scheme, it must rest on the whole, and not on the part, 
and that which it charged to the universe will not press 
vely heavily on the individual ! And what would super- 
vene upon the earth, if this theory of life might obtain 
among men ? The geologist, entranced with his discoveries 
in the deep places of the sphere, or filling balloons of specu- 
lation in his study to launch into the deeper places of the 



H 0 W E. 



1G7 



air, might do society no harm, unless it were by constantly 
disturbing its accepted philosophy of nature with new and 
more visionary hypotheses; but what would restrain the 
unrefined, the sensual, the necessitous ? What shield would 
protect weak innocence from mighty guilt ? What threat- 
ening avenger would guard the rights of property and of 
life, if the dread of something after death were dispelled 
by the persuasion that thought and feeling are mere physical 
phenomena, and will cease when dissolution shall unstring 
the nerves on which they have vibrated ? Earth would 
become the very vestibule of hell, and men and devils 
mingle in equal intercourse, if the work of the law written 
on men's hearts, and amplified on the page of revelation, 
did not disseminate a loftier conceit of our nature, relations, 
and destiny, than these materialists endeavour to make 
current in the walks of learning. 

I may detain you with but one further objection to the 
theory of physical development, now attractively set forth, 
and winning respectful attention, if not assent, in literary 
circles. It is at variance with the consciousness of immor- 
tality, which seems to be inherent in the mind of man. At 
any rate, the pagan sages of all times and all tribes, who 
have thoughtfully considered the intellectual and moral 
attributes of our race, have inferred, with various degrees 
of confidence, that there is some ethereal part which sur- 
vives the body. The extent of the mind's range, the occa- 
sional triumph in which it rises over physical suffering, the 
accumulating strength and resources w T hich it manifests 
through the period of the body's decline, and down to the 
moment of its dissolution, all are unaccountable, but upon 
the theory that, while the soul abides in the flesh, it is a 
lordly guest of higher pedigree and nobler nature, and that, 
when it goes forth, " the earthly house of this tabernacle 
being dissolved," it is, to find a house, not made with 



168 PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 



hands, eternal. But the studious materialist, not allowing 
himself to speculate on the phenomena of his own intellec- 
tual being, as a special department of nature, governed, 
perhaps, by its own harmonious, but not identical, laws, 
proceeds to inspect the monuments of the past; and, finding 
some tokens of progression in the lapse of the ages, with 
inventive alacrity, he fills up the breaks, bridges the 
chasms with bold theories of a single span, pushes further 
back, with daring speculation, than the enduring record of 
material nature runs, condenses all things into one pregnant 
mass, and then proclaims the universality of a law of which 
he has caught glimpses through the chinks of nature, that 
all things have been developed by spontaneous energy, one 
from another ; and, to illustrate his allegiance to this phy- 
sical fate, he bows his own heaven-aspiring forehead to find 
his ancestry among the apes and reptiles of the earth, and, 
his vivid soul, panting for immortality, he constrains to be 
submissive, while he declares it to be nothing more than 
his material form disclosing a peculiar aspect, under the 
action of an extraneous physical agent ! Oh ! is there any 
picture of humanity more humiliating, more significant of 
the depravity and moral subversion of our nature, than we 
see exhibited in the scholar whose reason is hoodwinked 
by his pride of attainment and invention, and who, to per- 
fect and maintain a favourite theory, will blink the facts 
of science, invent connecting links to suit his need, spurn, 
unstudied, the disclosures of God's Word, and even stifle 
the revolting instincts of his own nature ? The materialist 
does all this. To complete the reach of his conjectural law 
of regular, successive development, he denies himself that 
pleasing sense of immortality which ennobles the unread 
peasant, and, to mark the triumph of his scientific skill, 
reduces his soul to a thing, a clod of earth, sparkling for a 



HOWE. 



1G9 



moment with intelligence, and then returning to its dull, 
unconscious, and base condition again ! 

Before this assemblage I may seem to have been treating 
of a type of scepticism which is but rarely found, and 
infatuating the minds of only a few enthusiastic scholars, 
whom much or little learning has made mad. Would to 
God it were even so ! I grant you that materialism, so 
systematized and illustrated by natural and supposititious 
facts, beguiles but a small remnant of the great multitude 
of practical sceptics. The scheme is too new, its field of 
research too intricate, its reasonings too subtle to have yet 
been apprehended by the common mind. But materialism 
in a cruder form — the wish, half formed into a belief, that 
there is no moral Governor, no living soul, no future after 
death — is the sad and paralyzing scepticism which besets 
every spirit consciously guilty, unrepentant, and unfor- 
given ! The irreligious world is on the alert for material, 
however specious, to justify such grovelling opinions. And 
no witness against the truth of revelation is so sure of wel- 
come as that old enemy, against whose sophistries Paul 
cautioned the church in his day, "science falsely so 
called !" 

The danger from this supercilious and assuming demon 
of infidelity — scholastic materialism — is the more imminent, 
because it is now mingling itself with the popular literature 
of the age ! And the age is one which loves to be flattered 
with fragments of science, flung into its intellectual pabu- 
lum as it were, prepared to enjoy its savour and digest its 
substance. Technical terms, once abhorrent, are now 
affected, and serve to illuminate the pages of popular books, 
and magazines and newspapers. And men who can catch 
a few of them, and lard their lean thoughts, to use the 
phrase of quaint Burton, with such basting, can often 

impose on themselves the conceit, and on others the convic- 
22 



170 PHYSICAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 

tion, that they understand the science to which such nomen- 
clature belongs. When the literary taste of the masses 
discovers such an infirmity, and infidelity disguised in the 
mantle of science is attempting to tamper with it, it is 
time for the advocates of revealed truth to lift up the 
warning voice, and to demand that alleged discoveries be 
well authenticated; that theory extend itself no further 
than fact ; and that revelation, which has such clustering 
tokens in every department that it is of God, shall be ac- 
counted true in its history of the creation, in its doctrine 
of Divine Providence, in its portraiture of man's complex 
nature, until Science, in all her haunts, and by the voice 
of all her devotees, shall proclaim, with unfaltering tongue, 
through half a century, that the record is false, and that 
she has deciphered Nature's Monogram, and is ready to 
rehearse its infallible import ! 



^ctltstasttcal gjMoptnt. 



BY RT. KEY. THOMAS ATKINSON, D.D. 

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



VI. 



ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 



" Te slioidd earnest!}} contend for the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints." Jude, 3. 



NTIL within a comparatively recent period, it was 



\J acknowledged by all Christians, that this injunction 
was binding on the Church in every age ; that it possessed a 
faith or creed which had been delivered to it from above 
once for all; that an essential part of its office was to 
hold and transmit that faith ; and an essential part of its 
duty was to contend strenuously for it when assailed. It 
was conceded, too, as a matter of course, that this true 
Christian Faith was the doctrine held and taught by Christ 
and His Apostles, that and no other. There was, indeed, 
serious diversity of opinion as to the channel by which 
that doctrine was derived to us ; whether it flowed through 
Scripture alone, or through Scripture and tradition co-ordi- 
nately : but there was no dispute as to its authority and 
sufficiency when once ascertained. But all this is now 
changed ; a more daring school of theology has risen up, 
which treats with scorn those ancient limitations of Christ- 
ian doctrine, and vindicates for it a domain not less bound- 
less than that of natural science, which dissuades us from 
resorting for our faith to the ancient fountains of Scripture, 
or even Tradition, but bids us draw it fresh and new from 
the abundant streams of the present Church. 




(173; 



174 



ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 



In this age of progress it is supposed to have been disco- 
vered and even proved, that Christian doctrine did not come 
down to us in its entireness from Christ and His apostles ; 
that it was not revealed to these last as it is to modern pon- 
tiffs, doctors, and teachers ; that it is indeed communicated 
to the world, bit by bit, as it is needed, and that thus, gradu- 
ally accumulating, it is impossible to foretell to what volume 
and amplitude it may at length grow. Such is the theory 
of development, of which occasional glimpses seem to have 
been taken by Romish divines ever since the Reformation, 
but which has been more plainly indicated by the celebrated 
Mobler, in his work on Symbolism, and has been at length, 
with great elaboration of detail, great profusion of learning, 
and great acuteness of reasoning, stated and defended by 
Dr. Newman, as his justification for renouncing the Church 
of England, and submitting to that of Rome. It is quite 
clear, too, that this theory, though to so great an extent the 
product of the teeming brain of a recent convert, is not only 
tolerated, but warmly welcomed, in the Church of Rome ; 
and that the leading minds of that Church are prepared 
to take this very position as the battle-ground on which 
they will hereafter contend for its exclusive authority and 
universal domination. For Dr. Newman, on making his 
submission, expressly referred this book to the judgment 
of the Church he was entering; and that Church is by no 
means slow or mild in censuring when she is displeased. 
On the contrary, she has a congregation or commission, 
which sits for the very purpose of examining books, and 
placing on the "Index Expurgatorius" those which are 
considered faulty. And not only do we find on that list 
treatises of Christian doctrine, but even works of science 
and general literature, down even to the lightest tales of 
fiction. But no unfavourable sentence has gone forth 



ATKINSON. 



175 



against this remarkable production. On the contrary, it 
has been received by the church to which it appealed with 
the most flattering applause. A writer in the Dublin Be- 
view, well understood to be Cardinal Wiseman, speaks of 
the volume as " the description of the process of reasoning, 
by which the author's powerful and well-stored mind was 
brought to a full accordance with Catholic truth." The 
Boman Catholic Bishop of Edinburgh took it as the text 
for a series of lectures in the Scotch capital. And when 
the author, soon after its publication, went on the continent, 
his journey through France was illustrated by all the 
honours which the most eminent of the clergy could lavish 
on him ; while his reception at Borne was not that of a 
penitent seeking forgiveness, but rather that of a conqueror 
in the heroic age, entering the Eternal City after a glorious 
campaign. The late Pope presented him with a beautiful 
crucifix. The present pontiff permitted him to reside in 
the College of the Propaganda, and to edify and instruct 
the people by his preaching, even before he obtained the 
holy orders, alone recognised in the Boman Court.* We 
must infer, then, that his doctrine, just before published, 
must have been adjudged by the Pope not only sound, but 
unusually well fitted to enlighten and guide souls. 

The Church of Borne then stands before Christendom com- 
mitted to this theory of development, first by its silence, 
next by its action. A man of note comes bending before it, 
acknowledges it as his sovereign, and brings in his hand 
this book as an offering, and asks to be corrected if he has 
erred in anything there taught. He receives no answer, but 
an applausive, cordial welcome. This is surely an acknow- 
ledgment that his teaching deserves no censure. But it 
does not rest there. This teaching is caught up and echoed 



* Wordsworth's Letters to Gondon. 



176 ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 

and re-echoed by priest and prelate, from the pulpit and 
from the press, in various countries and in different lan- 
guages. The doctrine, then, has ceased to be merely toler- 
ated, it has become authoritative ; it is already half esta- 
blished, and its history will in time furnish another instance 
of the very process of which itself is the proffered solution, 
the process by which an opinion grows and hardens into 
an article of faith. Indeed, while this is a result which 
Komanists do not seem to deprecate, it is one which they 
probably could not avoid. They seem shut up by an inex- 
orable logical necessity to this doctrine of development. 
It may be an unsafe harbour, but it is the only one in 
which they can now anchor. For, at this day, it does not 
seem possible for audacity itself to be so unblushing as to 
maintain that Roman doctrine and primitive doctrine are 
precisely one and the same ; that the supremacy of the 
Pope is understood now as it was by St. Polycarp, St. Hip- 
poly tus, and St. Cyprian ; and that the confessed deifica- 
tion of the Virgin, as it is in our age, was a familiar and 
welcome thought to Epiphanius and Irenseus. 

It is obvious, then, that Dr. Newman is only a little in 
advance of the great body of Romish controversialists, and 
that they must all, however reluctantly, come up to his 
stand-point, because it is demonstrable that unless the 
Church of Christ has the power to develop new doctrines, the 
Church of Rome has not the right to teach her present doc- 
trines. Has, then, the Church of Christ, whether confined, 
as by Romanists, to their own communion, or extended to 
all who believe in Him, and are baptized into His name, 
has the Church any such power or right ? Now it is neces- 
sary to acknowledge, that there is a growth in the Church 
as a body, and even an expansion of Christian doctrine as 
a system, which may, by a dexterous, logical legerdemain, 
be made to appear to a careless observer, the same with 



ATKINSON. 



177 



that process of development which Dr. Newman advocates. 
Undoubtedly our Saviour did promise that His kingdom 
should increase from a very small beginning to mighty 
issues, as a plant grows from a seed, or as leaven diffuses 
itself through a lump, and in this, as in other things, His 
word has not returned unto Him void. Mankind have 
seen, with wonder and with awe, the vision of the Babylo- 
nian monarch fulfilled, the stone cut out without hands 
break in pieces and consume the iron and the brass, the 
clay, the silver and the gold, all opposing powers, however 
august, however consolidated, and that stone itself become 
a great mountain and fill the earth ; they have seen the 
little band of a hundred and twenty disciples, beginning at 
Jerusalem, the Church of Christ, enlarge itself, and crush, 
one by one, all the obstacles which the fanaticism of the 
Jews, aiid the wisdom of the Greeks, and the policy of the 
Romans, and the rude valour of the Barbarians, could rear 
up against it, and extend itself northward and southward 
and eastward and westward, until it occupied the whole 
civilized world, and still continue to grow, daily making 
new conquests from the surrounding wdlderness of Heathen- 
dom. In this sense there has been, indeed, a mighty deve- 
lopment in Christianity. And amid these altered circum- 
stances, and because of them, the laws and institutions of 
the Church have been greatly expanded. The government 
of the disciples was a very simple thing when they all met 
together in one upper chamber. Even during the lifetime 
of the Apostles, it became more complex. Timothy at 
Ephesus, and Titus in Crete, had to set in order things that 
were wanting, to make rules, administer discipline. As in 
process of time, new exigencies arose, so new laws w T ere 
required, and new tribunals and officers to promote the 
peace and order of Christian society. Canon law then, and 
ecclesiastical polity are now, of necessity, very different and 

23 



178 



ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 



far more complete than anything of the same nature which 
was known in the infancy of the Church. Here then is 
growth in the body itself and in its institutions, the gar- 
ments, so to speak, which it wears for vigour and for beauty. 
But this relates only to its outward, visible existence. We 
must go further, and acknowledge that, in what more 
immediately concerns its inner life, in its teaching, in its 
avowed and express faith, there has been, in the progress 
of time, an expansion which he who chooses may call a 
Development. 

It is quite obvious, e. g., to our very senses, that the 
Nicene Creed is more voluminous than the Apostles', and 
it is beyond dispute, that the Nicene is later than the 
Apostles', and that the increase is not by an accumulation 
of words, but by the annunciation of distinct and substantial 
propositions. The faith or creed of the Church, then, in 
one age, as propounded to mankind, was enlarged beyond 
what it had been in a preceding. And, afterwards, the 
decrees of the Councils of Constantinople, Ephesus, and 
Chalcedon, not to speak of others, were accepted by the 
Church as definitions of the essential faith. Here, then, is 
an advance, century after century, step by step. How, 
then, is it to be distinguished from that development, the 
operation of which has recently startled Christendom? This 
may be offered as a short and summary answer to the 
question, that the one is objective, the other subjective. 
That development, as taught by Dr. Newman, is increase in 
the amount of revealed truth itself, which increase the Church 
generates, while, on the other hand, the legitimate expansion 
of the Christian faith is a better understanding, and a 
clearer and more explicit statement, on the part of the 
Church, of truth already, once for all, revealed hy God. 
True progress in Christian doctrine is found in a more per- 
fect apprehension of what already exists ; development is 



ATKINSON. 



179 



an addition of what did not heretofore exist as revealed 
truth : as a new tier of stones is laid on a temple, as a fun- 
gus grows on an oak, or as alloy is poured on the fine gold. 
The subjective growth in Christian doctrine, on the part 
of the Church, is not only lawful but desirable, and, indeed, 
inevitable. Individual Christians, as they grow in grace 
and in experience, grow of necessity, likewise, in knowledge, 
not because more truth is given them, but because more is 
received by them. The human mind, applied to Holy 
Scripture, is like a cup dropped into the ocean — it draws up 
more or less according to its own measure, hindered by no 
limit on the part of a reservoir which is itself unlimited. 
So the collective mind of the Church goes on to learn from 
age to age. 

Prophecies explain themselves by fulfilment. Opposite 
aspects of the same truth are combined and reconciled. 
General propositions are drawn out, by deduction, into the 
particular verities which they include, as, from axioms in 
mathematics, theorems flow. Thus, we find in Scripture 
a certain moral law — " Be ye therefore merciful, as your 
Father also is merciful." Christians meditate on this law, 
the consciousness of the whole Church grapples with it, 
and it is traced out to its issues. It is soon discovered to 
be repugnant to gladiatorial shows, to a harsh and unmiti- 
gated system of slavery, even to rigorous parental discipline 
like that of the Romans, to aggressive warfare, and the 
like ; and practices of this sort begin to be assailed, either 
by express laws of the Church, or of Christian states, or by 
the current and pressure of Christian sentiment. Here 
then is a deduction of particular moral judgments from a 
general principle. And thus, to take an instance from 
what is less ethical and more simply intellectual : Jesus 
Himself declared His oneness w T ith the Father. When 
heresies arose concerning His nature, it became necessary 



180 



ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 



for the Church to define in what sense He was one with 
the Father, and it was then affirmed that He was so one 
as to be of the same substance with the Father, and this 
consubstantiality was made a test of orthodoxy, as it has 
ever since continued. 

Yet it is clear that this consubstantiality is only a par- 
ticular truth, embraced in the general truth that He is one 
with the Father, not figuratively but literally ; for, if one, 
then He must be of the same substance. Yet Dr. New- 
man does not hesitate to say that, because this doctrine 
was defined in the fourth century, it was a development 
of that century, as the papal supremacy and the worship 
of the Virgin were of subsequent eras. Let them be shown 
to be alike in this respect, that each flows by necessary 
consequence from Scripture, and then we shall be con- 
strained to place them on the same level as of Divine 
authority. Until a doctrine, however, is proved to be 
taught in Scripture, either expressly or implicitly, it ought 
not to be received as a part of revelation, unless it have 
the evidences that revelation has, miracles like those of 
Christ and His Apostles, antecedent prophecies, harmony 
with God's acknowledged word, and superhuman purity 
and elevation on the part of its teachers. When any 
Romish doctrine comes to us with these notes of a Divine 
origin, we are bound to accept it as Divine ; until then, 
jealousy for the honour of God's word, as well as respect 
for our own understandings, bids us reject it. For this 
notion of development, if admitted, requires us to believe 
that the Church is empowered to declare from time to time 
truths necessary to salvation, which are strictly new ; that 
matters of doctrine are now binding on the faith of Christ- 
ians which were never known to the Apostles and Evange- 
lists, actually or virtually ; never taught by them orally or 
in writing ; never accepted by or known to the Church in 



ATKINSON. 



181 



its primitive and purest state; nay, that hereof the Church 
may teach with the penalty of eternal damnation on those 
who will not believe it, what no one at the present day 
believes, no one has ever heard of, no one has ever ima- 
gined ; and is certainly a most formidable claim, and makes 
Christianity scarcely less than a new religion. It binds us 
down to accept, not the faith which purified and saved the 
soul of St. Paul, or St. Augustin, but any faith now or 
hereafter to be declared by the authority of the Church. 
Do these persons who offer us this new and startling doc- 
trine, confirm it by miracles, not of winking madonnas, 
and self-inflicted stigmata, but by such miracles as become 
a new revelation — by such miracles as those of Pentecost 
and the Eesurrection ? It cannot be pretended. Do they 
bring their proofs from Holy Scripture ? So far from it, 
that there is nothing which Holy Scripture more vehe- 
mently affirms, and more frequently reiterates, than the 
immutability of the faith. " One Lord, one Faith, one 
Baptism," is what St. Paul preaches. "Contend strenu- 
ously for the Faith, once delivered to the saints," is St. 
Jude's exhortation. And thus again St. Paul says, u Keep, 
0 Timothy, that which is committed to thy trust ;" " Take 
heed unto thyself and the doctrine, continue in them;" 
" Charge some that they teach no other doctrine." But 
especially consider how St. Paul fulminates against this 
deadly error in his Epistle to the Galatians. " Though we," 
says he, " or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel 
unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let 
him be accursed." As Vincent of Lirins remarks, he does not 
say though I, but though we, though J ames, though John, 
though Peter himself, of course, one may infer, though any 
of his successors, real or pretended; yea, though an angel 
from heaven preach any other Gospel, let him be accursed. 
Nor is he content to say this once, but immediately and 



182 ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 

deliberately repeats it. As we said before, so say I now 
again, if any man preach any other Gospel unto you than 
that ye have received, let him be accursed. And thus, 
as Vincent observes, " to preach anything to Christians 
besides what they have received, never has been lawful, 
nowhere is lawful, nor ever shall be lawful. That vessel 
of election, that teacher of the Gentiles, that trumpet of 
the Apostles, that herald of the lands, that confidant of 
Heaven cries, and cries repeatedly, and to all, always and 
everywhere, that if any shall have preached a new doctrine 
let him be anathematized." 

And it is to be noted that the Gospel against which St. 
Paul so vehemently protests, is not one incompatible with 
his own, but different from his own, different only if it 
affirm what he did not affirm. And if we inquire into the 
judgment of the Fathers on this point, we find that if they 
knew more of the will of God than the Apostles did, they 
were utterly unconscious of this superior wisdom, but sup- 
posed themselves only to teach what they had received by 
transmission from these very Apostles. Nay, that even 
the mediaeval Church was ignorant of its own power to 
originate new revelations, but considered rather that Novelty 
was a sure sign of heresy. Here then we have a problem, 
an acknowledged variation between Apostolic teaching 
and Romish teaching ; we have a theory of development 
offered us as the solution of that problem. It is a theory, 
however, not countenanced by Scripture, but anathematized 
thereby ; not known to the primitive Church, nor the medi- 
aeval Church, except as a sign of heresy; not sustained by 
miracles, nor any other supernatural evidence. 

It rests, then, for its proof purely on its own reasonable- 
ness. Is it then, as it ought to be, if candid men are to 
receive it, the most reasonable and the most obvious thing 
imaginable ? Surely it is strange, if so, that it should be 



ATKINSON. 



183 



so lately discovered. It is an assertion that Kevelation 
must grow as natural science grows. But is not this, to 
keep out of view the essential idea of a Revelation ? What 
do we mean by a Revelation ? In one sense, all knowledge 
is revealed, for all light comes from the Father of lights. 
But God communicates knowledge in different ways. Some 
truths we learn mediately by inductions from facts, by 
weighing probabilities, by comparison of ideas, by deduction 
from general principles of nature. 

But there are other truths, which, from the character of 
their subject-matter, could not be learned in this way : such 
e. </., as pertain to His own essence and attributes, and to 
the life beyond the grave, which yet it exceedingly behooved 
mankind to know, and which He has in His mercy conde- 
scended to teach us, by express oral or written messages. 
If a man deny that in this last sense a Revelation has ever 
taken place, we know what he means, he is simply an infidel. 
But if he admit that this has been done, then he acknow- 
ledges that God does communicate religious Truth in a way 
different from, and opposite to, that by which He teaches 
Natural Science. Science, as it has been well said, is a 
revelation in and by the reason, the Gospel is a revelation 
to the reason. To obliterate this distinction is in its effect 
to destroy all religious faith. 

But, before the misguided follower of these new lights 
reaches that quagmire of rationalism towards which they 
guide him, observe into what odious and irreverent positions 
he is conducted. Christian knowledge, say the advocates 
of Development, is ever advancing. St. Paul, then, knew 
less than St. Athanasius, and St. Athanasius less than St. 
Bernard, and St. Bernard less than St. Alphonsus Liguori, 
or Dr. Newman. Nay, that is far from being the entire 
anti-climax. St. Paul, who was so ignorant of truth and 



184 ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 

duty as to rebuke the Primate St. Peter openly, and to tell 
him that he erred — St. Paul, who knew of but one mediator 
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus — St. Paul, 
who seems to have relied as little on the Virgin Mary to 
assist in his salvation as on any woman then unborn — St. 
Paul, who believed that all Christ's people when absent 
from the body are present with the Lord, instead of being 
racked by the intolerable pains of Purgatory — this man 
was on Romish principles not only a less enlightened and 
less accurate teacher than Dr. Newman, but he was a less 
informed Christian than the least and lowest of Dr. New- 
man's disciples ; than the merest girl fresh from a convent ; 
than the rudest and poorest Irish labourer, who commits 
his departing soul to the Virgin; nay even than the Italian 
bandit who kneels before an image while waiting for the 
traveller whom he intends to rob or to murder. What- 
ever the practices of these men may be, if the Theory of 
Development be true, their hnoivledge of Christian doctrine 
is greater than that of any ancient Father, than of any pri- 
mitive Saint, than of any even of the exalted Twelve who 
saw and heard the Lord of life Himself, and whom He 
promised to guide into all truth. And what the most 
advanced Christian now knows of the Christian Faith is less 
than what a Tyro may know hereafter. To-morrow there 
may be new discoveries in Christianity. The next steamer 
may bring us in addition to the price of cotton and the 
number of killed and wounded in another battle on the 
Danube, intelligence of a new article of that Faith without 
believing which a man cannot be saved. His doctrine may 
be sufficient to-day, but when he goes abroad to-morrow 
he learns that there is another Development which he must 
believe or be lost. He is exposed to be anathematized, not 
on the old ground pointed out by St. Paul, that he has 



ATKINSON. 



185 



received another Gospel, but on the exactly opposite ground, 
that he would not receive another Gospel. Where is all 
this to end? What sort of religion will Christianity be 
when fully developed ? " When the Son of Man cometh, 
shall he find faith on the earth ?" Let us, my brethren, 
devoutly thank God that we belong to a Church that 
adheres to the old landmarks, and is content to be no wiser 
than the Apostles, and which enjoins on all its ministers 
and all its members to contend strenuously for the Faith 
onoe delivered to the saints. 



24 




BY REV. SAMUEL FULLER, P.D., 

RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, ANDOVER, MASS. 



VII. 



EATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 

" Beware, lest any man spoil you, through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after 
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Col. n. S. 

THE subject to which I am now permitted by a merciful 
Providence, and by the kindness of the founders of 
this course of lectures, to invite your candid and earnest 
attention, is Rationalistic Development. 

In approaching this difficult and important theme, it is 
my fervent prayer to Almighty God that the Holy Spirit 
may so direct our thoughts and rule our hearts as to render 
the present occasion largely profitable to our souls, and 
widely promotive of his glory ; and this for the sake of 
Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord and Saviour ! 

At the threshold of our inquiries this primary question 
presents itself: 

What is Rationalism ? 

Rationalism is the attempted supremacy of reason in 
religious matters. It is the attempted, and not the actual, 
supremacy ; since, from the very nature of the case, every 
effort to bring the infinite within the compass and domi- 
nion of the finite will ever prove a signal and instructive 
failure. 

The renowned reformers, Luther and Calvin, had not 
been long resting in their graves, when the churches of 

(189) 



190 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



Europe were startled and appalled by such annunciations 
as these from the mouths of Faustus Socinus, and the 
author of the Racovian Catechism, Valentine Smalcius, the 
revivers of the ancient Arian heresy, which insists that 
there was a time when the Divine Word, the everlasting 
Son of the Father, did not exist : " To admit any doctrines 
which are contrary to common sense, we neither can nor 
ought to be induced by the express words of the Spirit of 
God himself."* " Whatever opinion agrees not with reason 
is inadmissible in divinity, "-j* 

The next generation heard still more hardy and irreve- 
rent declarations ; for Simon Episcopius, an Arminian 
divine of Holland, thus dogmatizes : " Whatever the reason 
of man finds out to be false, is on no account to be consi- 
dered as true or right in religion." 

With the noted polemic, Dr. Joseph Priestly, this was a 
favourite maxim, as unsound in principle as it is daring in 
spirit : " It is now time to lay less stress on the interpreta- 
tion of particular texts, and to allow more weight to gene- 
ral considerations, derived from the whole tenor of Scripture 
and the dictates of reason, and if there should be found any 
difficulty in accommodating the one to the other, the Scrip- 
ture, and not reason, should remain unaccounted for. "J 

These bold assertions of influential and leading Ration- 
alists very clearly discover the principle on which they 
insist the interpretation of the written word of God and 
all religious investigation should be conducted; that the 
judgment of our reason must in every case be regarded as 
decisive and supreme. 

If this is in brief a just definition of Rationalism, we 
may now introduce to our notice another inquiry : 

* Socinus. 

f Smalcius. Smith's Scrip. Testimony to Messiah, Vol. I. p. 68. 
% Hist, of Corruptions of Christianity, Vol. I. p. 261. 



FULLER. 



191 



What is Development? 

In itself, Development is simply a gradual unfolding. It 
is not a creative act, but a successive opening and increase 
of something already existing ; while in its manifestations, 
Development is as various as are the things, which by 
degrees unfold themselves and come to perfection. The seed 
develops itself into the plant. The acorn develops itself 
into the oak. The bud develops itself into the leaf. The 
blossom develops itself into the fruit. The child is deve- 
loped into an adult. But as in these familiar instances of 
development there is no new act of creation, so there is no 
change of the original essence. No species ever commin- 
gles and becomes identical with another. " Do men gather 
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?"* u Can the fig-tree 
bear olive berries ? Either a vine figs ?"f In the vegetable 
world no such transmutation and confusion ever occur, but 
each kind of plant, grain, and tree invariably produces its 
like. 

In the animal kingdom, the same undeviating law of suc- 
cession also prevails ; physiologists and anatomists searching 
in vain for an example where a race has unfolded itself 
into a new one. Nowhere within the sphere of the world's 
observation does one form of life pass into some other. 
Vegetables never become animals, nor do brutes lose their 
nature, ascend in the scale of being, and obtrude themselves 
into the ranks of humanity.J 

Such is Development as it exists in the material creation ; 
and hence we may expect that the same impossibility of 
blending diverse natures prevails, as an inexorable law, in 
every other department of existence. 



* Matt. vii. 16. f James iii. 12. 

% Baron Cuvier, Murchison, Charles Bell. Indications of the Creator, by 
Geo. Taylor. 



192 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



With these preliminary observations, we are perhaps 
prepared for the reception of our principal question, 

I. WHAT IS RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT ? 

Development rationalistic is a theory devised by modern 
rationalists, of the perpetual evolution of new doctrine 
under new circumstances. It is the hypothesis of a develop- 
ing energy in the Gospel, which incessantly moulds its 
original principles into novel forms of truth. 

Thus Immanuel Kant, a most eminent philosopher of 
Germany during the last century, and a professed rationalist, 
proposes so to transmute Christianity as to free it from all 
old dogmas. " Mysteries must eventually pass into the 
form of moral notions by a metempsychosis, if they are 
ever to become intelligible. The Church creed contains 
within the germ of a principle, whereby it is urged to a 
continual and more close approximation towards pure ethics 
and religion, until at length these last being attained, the 
other will be superseded and dispensed with. The swad- 
dling bands beneath which the embryo shot up to manhood 
must be laid aside when the season of maturity has come. 
The leading-strings of sacred traditions, which in their time 
may have been of service, grow by degrees superfluous."* 

This theory of indefinite progress inherent in the very 
nature of the Gospel, is thus portrayed by the distinguished 
American divine who, in the metropolis of New England, 
once so eloquently advocated the modification of Christi- 
anity, called Unitarianism : 

" In the times of the early Fathers, Christianity was in 
its infancy. The Apostles communicated its great truths 
to the rude minds of Jews and heathens, but the primitive 
Church did not, and could not, understand all that was 

* Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Pure Reason, Pref. & B. 3, Apot. 
1, I 7. 



FULLER. 



193 



involved in those principles. In the first age, the religion 
was administered with a wise and merciful conformity to 
the capacity of the recipients. With the progress of intel- 
ligence, and the development of the moral faculties, 
Christianity is freeing itself, and ought to be freed, from 
the local, temporary, and accidental associations of its 
childhood."* 

According to this theory of Development, Christianity is 
not so much a body of definite doctrine, as an embryon 
principle, or a prolific idea, yielding diversified products, 
branching into many species and varieties, and manifesting 
itself under endless modifications; and yet under all these 
infinite forms retaining its original and divine character. 
Of course, at its commencement, Christianity was not fully, 
but only partially revealed. As a truth it was only a seed, 
out of which it was subsequently to grow until it reached 
maturity. To Jesus of Nazareth and his Apostles, God 
imparted his will in such a form, that from it succeeding 
ages can develop other truths, and this indefinitely, as their 
aspirations prompt, or their exigencies require. -j* 

This is the aspect of nationalistic Development as pro- 
fessed by the followers of the German philosophers, Kant, 
Schelling, and Hegel. But in France, and among the 
admirers of the Eclecticism of Victor Cousin, Rationalistic 
Development exhibits still another phase. 

In the assuming and erroneous language of the disciples 
of this school, " Intuition is a direct manifestation of truth. 
Everything of an intuitional character unfolds itself more 
and more in the individual. In proportion as our spiritual 
nature is brought more into harmony with truth and with 

* Dr. W. E. Channing's Works. 

f Letters on Development, by Key. Wm. Archer Butler, D. D. 
25 



194 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



God, will there be a clearer reflection within us of divine 
things."* 

According to the imperious dogmas of this popular and 
aspiring modern Platonism,f we are able by a kind of 
intellectual vision, to soar, not only above the world of sense, 
but beyond the sphere even of our personal consciousness, 
and boldly to place ourselves at the very centre of Absolute 
Beimr, with which indeed reason is to be regarded as 
identical ; and then from this central point surveying 
essential existence, and its various relations, we can next 
unveil the nature of the Deity, and fully explain the deriva- 
tion of all things which have been created by the Infinite ! % 

As a necessary consequence of this refined and subtle 
theory, whatever in the Scriptures agrees with our innate 
sense of absolute truth, we are for this cause to believe; 
while everything that does not receive the spontaneous 
assent of our reason, or rather is not suggested by this 
faculty, we are to reject; the primary intuitions of the 
soul, and their independent deductions, constituting both 
the standard and the measure of religious truth. 

Rationalistic Development, then, as the twin offspring 
of Rationalism, forms with its parent a tri-corporal monster; 
like the horse leech and her two daughters, " a generation 
whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, 
to devour the Lord's poor from the earth, and needy and 
perishing souls from among men."§ The voracious mother 
takes her stand upon experience, making this the criterion 

* Morell, Philosophy of Religion, pp. 199, 200. 

f Plato taught, that the soul was an emanation from God, and that human 
reason was therefore identical with the Divine. From this single fragment of 
ancient alloy, how many attenuated and brilliant leaves have been beaten by 
philosophical and theological artisans ! 

% Sir Wm. Hamilton's Review of Cousin's Philosophy. Edinburgh Review, 
October, 1829. 

\ Proverbs xxx. 14. 



FULLER. 



195 



and test of all truth, while the not less sharp-mouthed 
daughters, abandoning the ground of empiricism, maintain 
a different doctrine : the German child, that the Gospel is 
only an incipient fundamental idea or principle, a nascent 
thought ; the French bantling, that all possible knowledge 
both of truth and duty is inherent in reason itself. 

Thus diverse in the times of their ascent from the smoke 
which arises from their subterranean father-land (for Eation- 
alism assumed its name about the middle of the seventeenth 
century, while its progeny, dualistic development, is the 
portentous and desolating infliction of the eighteenth and 
nineteenth), the maternal parent, and her legitimate off- 
spring, clothe themselves with very different garbs of per- 
sonification. 

Sometimes Kationalism presents itself under the veteran 
form of grim and sturdy Deism, armed cap-a-pie with infidel 
objections, bristling with mighty difficulties, and marching 
heavily and sternly forth with sword, and spear, and battle- 
axe, to wage a war of death and extermination against every 
revealed truth. 

But now Kationalism, the warrior and crusader, has dis- 
appeared. He is no longer a Bolingbroke, a Yoltaire, or a 
Paine; but he moves in our midst in a clerical habit; 
gravely ascends the pulpit ; opens the printed Word of God ; 
mysteriously waves over it his magic wand, which he calls 
Accommodation ; solemnly informs us that, by this lin- 
guistic necromancy, he has banished from the sacred page 
every superhuman presence, whether angelic or Divine ; 
and, with the air of an oracle, assures us that the Book 
now speaks only as Plato and Socrates might have spoken, 
had they enjoyed the clearer light and superior illumination 
of the present century ! 

Finding, however, that the common sense of mankind 
must ever hold this as an undoubted maxim : the lan- 



198 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



guage of the Old and New Testaments is subject to the 
same fixed and unalterable laws as govern the language of 
all other books, and that, therefore, the inspired writers 
spoke the words of truth and soberness, or else there have 
never been any such words in the world, nationalism shuts 
the Bible in disgust and despair, leaves the Church, re- 
nounces Christianity, denies the independent and personal 
existence of God, and turns idealistic philosopher. 

He retires to his study, and there thinks long and deeply 
upon the nature of his own soul ; vainly hoping to find in 
its hidden depths something which will explain the mys- 
teries of his own being, and the wonderful relations in which 
he stands to other things. At length, wearied with the 
double exercise of tasking his intellect and of watching the 
responses of his consciousness, he calls in the aid of his 
imagination, which soon enables him to congratulate him- 
self upon the great and unparalleled discovery of an inward 
ear, hitherto unstopped, and, therefore, deaf, and of an 
internal eye, ever before shut, and, consequently, blind. 

Rejoicing in the supposed possession of faculties which, 
by rendering all conceivable voices audible, and all possible 
truths visible and intelligible, open his soul to the whole 
universe of knowledge, he covets retirement and solitude, 
that, undisturbed by the occupations and distractions of 
the world, he may hold spiritual and elevating converse 
with nature and with himself. He withdraws to the fields 
and woods, and, with rapt delight, fancies he hears instruc- 
tive teaching on all hands, and supposes he sees, with his 
new power of abstract perception, not only the modes, but 
the very essence of all beings ; mistaking, all the while, the 
bewitching tune his imagination plays, for this universal 
music, and the illusive visions this wily enchantress dis- 
plays, for this unlimited intelligence. 

Thus it is, that Rationalism is, in its pervading spirit, 



FULLER. 197 

either Deistical, holding to mere Naturalism, although not 
utterly discarding the Bible ; and then it is contentious and 
controversial, subtle and deceitful, acting the fierce and 
bloody assailant, or the cunning and adroit conjuror, as 
may best subserve its settled and relentless purpose of 
separating God and man from all intercommunion, and of 
hunting revealed religion from the earth : or Eationalism 
is Pantheistic, blending God and the world together, and 
deifying itself; and then, its self-conceit and its indifference 
to all theology, and to the distinctions between right and 
wrong, and good and evil, render it complacent and tole- 
rant, courteous and blithesome ; while its visionary tenden- 
cies conduct it into the region of the ideal, where, were 
there really no such things as Divine justice and holiness, 
and human depravity and responsibility, no eternal life nor 
eternal death for every imperishable soul ; it might do but 
little harm in ballooning in a thin and sublimated atmo- 
sphere, disporting itself with its own fanciful creations and 
logical subtleties respecting necessity and spontaneity, 
myths and terminologies, quiddities and ontologies. 

Were the Bible a lying fiction, and all revealed truth but 
a deceitful fantasy, we might innocently gaze in silence as 
the developing idealist 

" Spreads for flight and fluttering his pennons, 
Uplifted spurns the ground ; thence, many a league, 
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides 
Audacious into the wide expanse ; 
Or in the emptier waste, resembling air, 
Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold 
Far off the empyreal Heaven extended wide."* 

But we must turn our eyes away from such a melancholy 
spectacle, in order to inquire for 



* Paradise Lost, B. n. 



198 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



II. THE SOURCES OF RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 

As, in tracing a river to its rise, we find that it does not 
originate in a single head, but in many springs and lakes, 
some near at hand and easy to approach, others more re- 
mote and difficult of access ; so the sources of Rationalistic 
Development are multiform — a part of them obvious and 
immediate, while another portion is obscure and distant. 

Beyond all question, the mad current is, at the present 
time, swollen to an overflowing flood, by the large infusion 
of the speculative philosophies of Germany and France. 
Further up the wild stream we can perceive Dr. Priestly 
and John Solomon Sender, the sophistical German theolo- 
gian, and their followers, also the deists Gibbon and Hume, 
and the French materialists, pouring in their bitter waters ; 
while, still more remote from us, Baron Swedenborg, a 
strange and visionary personage, wonderfully resembling 
the Arabian impostor, Mohammed, not, indeed, in warlike 
disposition, but in an insane and unbridled imagination, 
adds to the poisonous tide a crude and heterogeneous mix- 
ture of false philosophy, heretical Christianity, lawless 
interpretation, and sensual mysticism, under the form of 
pretended disclosures of Heavenly Secrets. 

But we have not yet followed Rationalistic Development 
backward to its first gushing fountain. 

It is remarkable that, in observing the prevalence of this 
specious and destructive error, as it now overshadows some 
portions of Christendom, we discover it in this country 
principally among the first settlers of New England, and 
among the emigrants from the land where Martin Luther 
distinguished himself. 

How are we to account for this well-known fact ? 

The Pilgrims, who came to Plymouth Rock, brought 



FULLER. 



199 



with them from England the theological views of the early 
Puritans in that island. 

But that candid and truthful English divine of the six- 
teenth century, Richard Hooker, who was incapable of wilful 
misrepresentation, asserts, that the first Puritans, in com- 
mon with the Anabaptists of Germany, maintained that it 
was " the special illumination of the Holy Ghost, whereby 
thev discerned those thing's in the Word, which, others 
reading, yet discerned them not."* 

Indeed, the declarations of the Rev. John Robinson, 
minister of the English congregation in Holland, to which 
the first settlers of New England belonged, are, in his fare- 
well address, delivered when his flock was about embarking 
for America, even still stronger than the testimony of Mr. 
Hooker. 

" If God reveal anything to you, by any other instrument 
of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive 
any truth by my ministry ; for I am verily persuaded, 
I am very confident, that the Lord has more truth yet to 
break forth out of his holy word. For my part, I cannot 
sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, 
who are come to a period in religion, and will go, at present, 
no further than the instruments of their reformation. The 
Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw ; 
whatever part of his will our good God has revealed to 
Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And the 
Calvinists, you see, stick where they were left by that 
great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a 
misery much to be lamented ; for though they were 
burning and shining lights in their times, yet they pene- 
trated not into the whole counsel of God ; but, were they 
now living, would be as willing to embrace further light, 



* Eccl. Pol. Pref. c. 3, \ 10. Hart^ick's Hist, of Articles, p. 96. 



^00 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



as that which they first received. I beseech you, remember, 
it is an article of your church covenant, 4 that you will be 
ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to 
you, from the written Word of God.' But I must herewith 
exhort you to take heed, w T hat you receive as truth. 
Examine it, consider it, and compare it with other Scrip- 
tures of truth, before you receive it. For it is not possible, 
that the Christian world should come so lately out of such 
thick anti-Christian darkness, and that perfection of Jenow- 
ledge should break forth at once."* 

Altogether, this is a most remarkable passage. Remark- 
able as disclosing the views of one of the founders of a 
wide-spread theology; remarkable as evidence respecting 
the religious opinions generally prevailing among certain 
classes at the period Mr. Robinson lived ; remarkable as, 
without doubt, containing the germinant and prolific seeds 
of the pestilent errors which have grown so luxuriantly 
upon the soil where they were originally scattered ; and 
remarkable for the high position it now occupies in the 
estimation of his successors and followers, who revive it in 
new editions of history, publish it as a doctrinal model,f 
circulate it in books of common instruction,^ and, in not 
a few schools, require it to be carefully committed to 
memory, § and thus virtually elevate it to the rank of a 
theological symbol. 

As a dogmatic creed the passage embodies these several 
Articles : 

* Winslow's History, John Robinson's Works, Vol. I. p. 44 ; Neale's History 
of Puritans, Vol. II. pp. 146, 147. 

f Robinson's Works are published by the English Congregational Union 
and the Massachusetts Doctrinal Tract and Book Society. 

% National Reader, by Rev. John Pierpont. 

| Rev. Joseph Emerson's Questions to Goodrich's History of United States, 
p. 23. 



FULLER. 



£01 



1. The written word of God contains truths concealed 
beneath the historical and grammatical sense. 

2. In its literal sense, the written word of God is not 
perfect. 

3. Revelation has not yet ceased. 

4. Ministers of certain churches are now the recipients 
of Divine revelation. 

5. Additional truths will be revealed. 

6. The revelations of light from the w T ritten word of 
God are gradual. 

7. Every minister is the judge of the revelation he 
receives. 

8. His judgment is infallible. 

9. The Christian religion is progressive, by means of the 
gift of new knowledge, from the Spirit of the Lord. 

10. Every Christian person is bound to admit the truth 
of these nine assumptions. 

11. All supplementary revelations he is likewise readily 
to welcome and implicitly believe. 

12. Their reception and belief will greatly improve his 
spiritual condition. 

13. By neglecting and disobeying them he will suffer a 
grievous loss. 

14. Their rejection is a legitimate cause of grief and 
lamentation in every child of God. 

From this parting discourse of Mr. Robinson to the 
company of emigrants to New Plymouth, it is evident that 
he regarded himself, and likewise Luther and Calvin, and 
indeed every other minister of concurrent faith, as the 
subjects of new revelations of truths fromt he Almighty ; 
and that, in this respect, his was but the common belief of 
the community of which he was so conspicuous a member. 
It is also plain, that he expected still additional revelations ; 
for he expresses his firm " persuasion" and strong " con- 
2G 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



fidence that the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out 
of His holy wordr by means of new disclosures. In 
short, Mr. Robinson was a believer in the progressive develop- 
ment of Christian doctrine; for he also bitterly complains 
that " the reformed churches would go no further, but had 
come to a period in religion," and likewise asserts that " it 
is not possible for perfection of knowledge to break forth 
from the word, of God at once:" or, in other phrase, the 
word of God, in its literal meaning, is imperfect ! 

If the disembodied spirit of the Rev. John Robinson 
has, since its departure from this troublesome life, more 
than two centuries ago, been witnessing the changes which, 
during this period, have occurred in the theological world, 
he doubtless no longer bewails the want of progress in the 
reformed churches, as the advancement has been in a 
direction he least anticipated, and reached a limit which he 
most heartily abhorred, and most scrupulously avoided ; 
for, at the present time, the deadly spirit of Rationalism, 
coeval in its manifestations with the Reformation itself, 
has, in the very country of Luther, in the city of Geneva, 
in the birth-land of the Plymouth pilgrims, and in their 
cherished home in this Western Continent, silenced the 
voice of true Scriptural teaching in thousands of pulpits, 
where once the Bible was by the ministers regarded and 
treated as the oracles of God, and by the people was 
received with undoubting faith, loved with glowing ardour, 
and obeyed with constant and unchanging faithfulness. 
Surely, the " period" to which some " churches" have at 
length come, is perpetually changing its position, and the 
stand-point they occupy is an ever-varying cycle. 

As was inevitable, the revelations for which the pastor 
of the Ley den exiles hoped and waited, were eventually 
realized; not, indeed, in additional light from heaven, but 
either in the wild vagaries of an excited imagination, or in 



FULLER. 



203 



the cold and paralyzing negations of a speculative natu- 
ralism.* 

In deference, then, to the unerring voice of history, we 
are in sorrow compelled to believe, that the theology origi- 
nally brought to Massachusetts, and there fostered in 
subsequent years, contained a deep infusion of Rationalism, 
and that this embodied and cherished leaven diffused itself, 
sometimes silently, sometimes loudly,-}* until the mass of 
the popular mind has been largely infected with the wasting 
heresies of Arianism and Pelagianism, Swedenborgianism 
and Humanitarianism, Transcendentalism and Pantheism, 
which, alas ! have not yet finished their frightful work of 
infidelity and spiritual death. 

That Martin Luther was himself, intentionally, a Ration- 
alist, no one will assert; and yet it is undeniable that he 
held, published, and transmitted to posterity Rationalistic 
sentiments. 

* About a century since, there occurred in this country the religious excite- 
ment which was familiarly called the Whitfield Stir. Bat, like Mr. Robinson, 
whose theological system he advocated, the Rev. George Whitfield claimed for 
himself a special revelation from heaven ; for these are his own words : " My 
doctrines I had from Christ and his Apostles; Iivas taught them of God." (a) 
" The Holy Spirit, from time to time, has led me into the knowledge of Divine 
things : and I have been directed, by watching and reading the Scriptures on 
my knees, even in the minutest circumstances, as plainly as the Jews were 
when consulting the Urim and Thummin at the High Priest's breast. "(5) 

Dr. Thomas Scott, the author of a widely circulated Commentary upon the 
Bible, employs language equally positive in reference to the Divine instruction 
he had himself received. "As surely as I believe him to be a God that heareth 
prayers ; so surely do I believe that flesh and blood hath not revealed to me the 
doctrines I now preach, but God himself by His Holy Spirit. (c) 

f " Their precept" (that of the first settlers of New England), "like their 
example, speaking, as it were, from their sepulchres, is, to follow truth now, 
not as they saw it, but as we see it, fearlessly and faithfully." — Justice Story's 
Misc., p. 61. 



(a) Whitfield's Letters, 214. (b) Account of God's Dealings, p. 34. 

(c) Force of Truth, Part III., c. 5. See also his Life, pp. 68 and 175. 



204 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



With regard to ministerial inspiration, his views were 
identical with those of Mr. Eobinson ; for he thus records 
his " general deference to what the spirit teaches" at the 
present time, as he evidently believed : — 

" Among Christians, it would be intolerable for one man 
to set up for master over others who are taught by the same 
spirit. It is enough to prove the spirits, whether they are 
of God ; and that being once ascertained, we ought instantly 
to show reverence, to lay aside all magisterial airs, and 
humbly to sit down as scholars ; for it is impossible for the 
Holy Spirit to speak, without delivering truths before which 
every man should boiv, and receive them icith child-like 
simplicity."* 

Luther was a firm believer in his own personal infallibil- 
ity ; a belief which is not only a material ingredient, but 
the very quintessence of all Rationalism. Thus convinced 
that his judgments were infallible, he rejected from the 
sacred canon two books of Scripture, that of Esther and 
the Epistle of St. James; while, moreover, he decided some 
moral questions in direct opposition to the command of 
our Saviour Christ. f 

But if Luther claimed for himself infallibility, why 
might not any other divine, a Semler, or a Paulus, an 
Amnion, or a Strauss, do the same ? If two books of the 
Bible can, by individual dictation, be deprived of their 
canonicity, why may not the whole sixty-six ? If one 
mandate of the Lord may be disobeyed, why may we not 
disregard and repudiate all? 

The removal of a single stone imperils the stability of 
the entire wall, and the first handful of snow taken away 
from the bottom of the mountain, may set in motion the 

* Letter to Brentius. Luther and Lutheran Reformation, by John Scott, 
toI. II., p. 213. 

t Sir Win. Hamilton's Discussions, pp. 484-496. 



FULLER. 



overwhelming avalanche. It may be, then, that the Ra- 
tionalistic principles unwittingly held by the Wittemberg 
Reformer, have ever since exerted upon German theology 
and the Teutonic mind a most pernicious influence, not 
only in Europe, but in this Republic. It may be, that the 
loud and shocking clamours now heard on all hands for 
the abolition of the Lord's-day, for the extinction of the 
Christian priesthood, and for the destruction of the Bible, 
are in reiterated and swelling echoes the doubts he whis- 
pered and recorded in his secret cloister. 

But we are able to trace Rationalistic Development still 
farther back into the field of the past. 

John Robinson was the follower of the Genevan Re- 
former, while both John Calvin and Martin Luther were, 
in many features of their theology, the disciples of Augus- 
tine, of the fifth century, the celebrated Bishop of Hippo, 
in Africa; who, when censured by Prosper and Hilary, the 
one a layman, and the other a Bishop of the Church in 
Gaul, for teaching his novel doctrine of predestination, 
while he admits the charge of novelty, defends his dogma 
on the ground that "it was a revelation from God in answer 
to prayer"* 

It is not then improbable, that the theological school, of 
which Mr. Robinson is a representative, derived their 
peculiar ideas of perpetual revelation from the African 
Bishop ; while, likewise, as he must have been the sole 
judge of the revelations he received, inasmuch as he 
wrought no miracles to prove their divine origin, it may 
be, that from the same Augustinian source, the German 
Reformer deduced his assumption of personal infallibility. 

As we ascend still nearer the Apostolic age, one other 

* Si orent earn qui dat intellectum, si quid de Prasdestinatione alitor sapiunt, 
ipse illis hoc quoque revelabit. — August, de Prcedest. et Persever., lib. I. c. 1. 
Oper., Vol. VII. p. 485. Faber on Election, B. 1, c. 8, pp. 110-112. 



206 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



spring-head of Rationalistic Development reveals itself in 
the person of the noted Origen, of the third century, a 
Presbyter of the Church of Alexandria in Egypt. 

Deluded by the Platonic philosophy which he adopted, 
and following the speculations of his own mind, he made 
additions to Divine revelation, by teaching the pre-exist- 
ence of human souls, a notion recently revived in this 
country;* and their incarceration in bodies for offences 
j3reviously committed, and that our senses pollute our 
spirits, and must all be mortified ; while he perverted the 
Gospel of God by maintaining that all rational beings are 
restrained only by motives, the most powerful of which is 
punishment ; and that God will thus ultimately bring all 
his creatures to be wise, holy, and blessed : the very seed- 
ground of modern Universalism.* 

Prom this single line of historical investigation, it is 
clearly evident, that from a very remote date has this 
enticing heresy prevailed in the Christian Church : revealed 
truth is a pliant 7nass, to he changed and modified either by 
increase or diminution, according to the notions of its pro- 
fessors. The introduction of this false principle has been, 
and still is, the prolific source of immeasurable evil; for 
while truth ever tends to life, error, however small or how- 
ever plausible, as inevitably works nothing but mischief 
and death. 

Such, then, are the sources of Rationalistic Development. 

III. HOW CAN THE THEORY, IN ITS VARIOUS MODIFICATIONS, 
BE PROVED TO BE FALSE AND UNTENABLE ? 

By showing that it stands upon an unsubstantial basis. 
Rationalistic Development rests upon two assumptions : 
the assumption of boundless capacity in the human soul; 

* The Conflict of Ages, by Rev. Edward Beecher, D.D. 
f Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. (Murdock's Edit.), Vol. I. p. 178. 



FULLE R. 



207 



and the assumption of imperfection in the Gospel revela- 
tion. 

1. The first foundation upon which nationalistic Deve- 
lopment rears its towering superstructure, is then the 
assumption of unlimited power in the human mind. 

To the intellect of man Rationalism attributes an ability 
which cannot be proved to exist. 

How do we know what powers the human intellect pos- 
sesses ? Not from speculation, but from consciousness. 
Oar mental faculties, whatever they are, cannot be con- 
structed by our ingenuity, like a machine, but they exist 
already in their completeness, and can, therefore, only be 
observed and watched by the inherent power of conscious- 
ness ; while the results of these conscious observations, 
constitute all the knowledge we can of ourselves have of 
the mechanism of our souls. 

But such profound philosophers as Socrates, Aristotle, 
and Pliny, such wise sages and spiritual Christians as Ter- 
tullian and Augustine, Chrysostom and Lord Bacon, Sir 
Isaac Newton and Bishop Butler, were not conscious that 
their intuitions unfolded themselves more and more ; they 
were not conscious of possessing the faculties Rationalistic 
Developers attribute to the human intellect; nor is the 
mass of mankind thus conscious; and if these faculties are 
not conscious and provable possessions, they are no facul- 
ties at all, and have no existence save in the imaginations 
of a few idealistic dreamers. Indeed, it is not too much to 
say, that not a single one of these speculatists is himself 
conscious of having a mental power by which he can sur- 
vey and compass the Absolute and the Infinite; while 
again, if no man has this ability, it is a nonentity, so far 
as we are concerned, and its existence is incapable of proof. 

From this infallible testimony of our consciousness, it 
follows that Rationalistic Development, so far as it is built 



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upon a false system of mental philosophy, is but the " base- 
less fabric of a dream and therefore should not disturb 
us, save with deep regrets that it has so many attached 
professors and enthusiastic admirers, who, by their delu- 
sion, are estranged from Christ, and deprived of the 
blessings of His salvation. 

In despite, then, of the laborious efforts of Rationalism 
to exalt, the office of reason, and even to elevate the faculty 
to the rank of a god, this mental instrument remains 
unchanged in its nature, and occupies the exact position it 
has always occupied. By its own admission, it was of old 
finite, ignorant, and weak, and unfit to be our highest 
religious guide ; and the lapse of centuries has added 
nothing to its essential compass, knowledge, and ability. 
As formerly, so now, reason " by searching cannot find out 
God," cannot discern His nature, cannot full}' discover our 
relations and duty to Him, cannot clearly determine His 
mind towards us, and, therefore, by its ignorance, weak- 
ness, and perversion, reason demonstrates the necessity of 
a Divine revelation and of superhuman assistance. After 
all the Rationalistic speculations and boasted developments 
with which the world has so long been deluded, reason is 
no new faculty, nor is it capable of performing any new 
work; but it is precisely the same thing it always was, 
and has now assigned it by its Divine Author the identical 
duties which were ever required of it. 

What, then, is the legitimate office of Reason, in connexion 
with the recorded oracles of God ? 

In view of the finite character of all our faculties, and 
the revelation contained in the Old and New Testaments, as 
a limited and unchanging collection of positive objects, 
lying absolutely beyond our natural observation, and for a 
knowledge of which we are wholly indebted to Divine con- 



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descension and testimony, the legitimate office of reason in 
connexion with the truth and church of God, can, by the 
similitude of a learned Swiss divine of the last century,* 
be thus illustrated : 

A King sends one of his officers to a province with autho- 
rity to govern it in his name. After a time this Governor 
allows himself to be ensnared and perverted by a faction. 
Hence the affairs of the province are very badly adminis- 
tered, and all things are thrown into confusion. The 
sovereign being well apprised of all that had happened, and 
perceiving that the government had not the wisdom and 
firmness, the energy and authority, requisite for remedy- 
ing the disorders of the province, and restoring it to peace, 
sends a Deputy Extraordinary, and gives orders to the 
Governor to submit himself entirely to this Deputy, and to 
take no measure without his direction. The Governor's 
first duty is to ascertain whether the superior minister be 
really sent by the King ; for unless lie have satisfactory 
evidence of this, he would be guilty of treason in yielding 
to the stranger the authority which the sovereign had com- 
mitted to him. But when he sees the sign-manual, and 
the other unquestionable attestations of the royal com- 
mission, he immediately delivers up all his own powers to 
the Deputy, and submits in all respects to his arrangements 
and decisions. Now, if I should ask, From whom does the 
Deputy hold his authority over the province ? From the 
King who sent him, and whose commission, signed and 
sealed, he has in his hands ? Or, from the Governor, who, 
on the production of those documents, received him with 
due honour and acknowledgment? Every man of com- 
mon sense will say, From the King surely ; for to suppose 
the other would be absurd. 

* Samuel Werenfels, Professor of Theology at Basil, who died in 1740. 
27 



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RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



The application of this parable is plain. The gracious 
and Almighty God has given Keason to man for the guide 
of his conduct through life. But Reason has submitted to 
be corrupted by sin ; and man, therefore, is fallen into a 
state of extreme misery. God, of his infinite goodness, has 
had mercy upon man; and seeing the insufficiency of 
Reason to restore him from his fallen state, and to deliver 
him from his misery, has sent Revelation, and has given 
orders to Reason to yield obedience, and to take no part in 
directing the conduct of man except what Revelation may 
assign. 

What, then, has Reason to do in this case ? First of all, 
she must examine whether this, which claims to be a 
Revelation from God, is indeed such; for if she have not 
satisfactory evidence of this, she cannot, without criminal 
rashness, surrender her own authority, which the Creator 
has invested her with for the government and guidance of 
man. But as soon as she is satisfied from indubitable 
proofs, that this is indeed a Divine Revelation, she yields 
without delay, and if Reason be indeed rational, submits 
herself entirely to the Word of God.* 

With regard, then, to revealed truth, the first legitimate 
office of reason is most obviously this : To examine the 
credentials of the men who profess to address us in the 
name of Almighty God. These credentials are, the 
miracles they wrought, and the prophecies they utter: a 
true record of which is contained in the genuine and 
authentic written documents of the Old and New Testa- 
ments. 

- Having satisfied itself from an unprejudiced scrutiny of 
the evidences of Christianity, that this religion is super- 
natural in its origin, reason then must proceed to ascertain 

* Smith's Scripture Testimony to Mess'ah, Vol. I. pp. 76-7. 



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the meaning of the inspired oracles, defend them from the 
assaults of enemies, harmonize their truths, and show their 
practical application to our hearts and lives. 

When reason executes this fourfold office, the religious 
work God assigns this faculty is fully accomplished ; because 
it is unable through its weakness, perversion, and igno- 
rance, either to unveil the invisible, to discover the truths 
the Bible discloses, to investigate their nature, to judge of 
their wisdom, or to pronounce upon their importance. 
Reason, when faithful to her duty, conducts us to Revela- 
tion, existing only in the Old and New Testaments, and 
opens for our admission the door of the Divine sanctuary, 
where she commits us to the arms of faith, and leaves us 
under her empire ; attending us afterward only as a sub- 
ordinate servant, and not as a sovereign master ; a sub- 
missive assistant, and not as an authoritative judge.* 

2. The other pillar on which the theory of Rationalistic 
Development founds its edifice, is the assumption of imper- 
fection in the Gospel revelation. 

In the theory this imperfection is itself inferred from two 
analogies : the one imaginary ; the other inadmissible and 
without force. 

We have heard the German Rationalists pronouncing 
Christianity to be the "germ of a principle," and a budding 
idea, thus assuming that it is imperfect ; and they attempt 
to justify this assumption by appealing, first, to alleged 
imperfections in the material world, and then, to the actual 
imperfection of the previous religious dispensations. 

In the hypothetical philosophy which underlies these 
assumptions, all things have emerged from a chaotic and 
unfinished state by gradual processes.*)- 

*Bp. D. Wilson's Evidences of Christianity, Lect. 23. 

f Lamarck, a French Naturalist, and his follo^Yers. Vestiges of Creation, and 
Edinburgh Review for January, 1845. 



212 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



Thus in several departments of natural science, especially 
in Geology and Astronomy. 

From the researches of Geologists these infidel philoso- 
phers endeavour to prove that all the present forms of 
animal life, not excepting even man himself, have proceeded 
from lower and imperfect forms, and that in this way all 
preceding beings originated, back through an indefinite 
series of successive production, till w T e reach the primitive 
energizing chaos itself. 

From the discoveries of Astronomers, nationalists con- 
clude* that the whole universe once consisted of attenuated, 
cloudy matter, out of which the heavenly bodies, planets 
and stars, have been gradually evolved. Thus finding, as 
they suppose, essential imperfection in all material things, 
they infer that the Gospel itself must in its nature be a 
chaotic seed or a curdling sun. 

But a profounder Geology f and a higher Astronomy J is 
demonstrating, that neither the teeming chaos, nor the 
nebulous material out of which worlds are conglomerated, 
has any existence but in the brains of these shallow phi- 
losophers. Geologists cannot discover any blending races 
of animals ; nor can Astronomers bring within the reach 
of their keenest vision the slightest indication that there 
are progressive formations among the bright worlds beyond 
the skies. 

The analogy, then, which Rationalists attempt to establish 
between Christianity and the material w r orld, is wholly 
imaginary, and consequently does not in the smallest 
degree sustain the assumption that the Gospel revelation is 
imperfect. 

An attempt is likewise often made to prove the Gospel 

* Nichols' Sidereal Heavens. 

f Foot-Prints of the Creator ; by Hugh Miller. Sir Charles Lyell's Geology. 
% Sir John Herschell. 



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imperfect ; on the ground of the allowed imperfection of the 
preceding dispensations, the patriarchal and the Mosaic. 

The patriarchal religion was imperfect, and therefore 
introductory to that of Moses ; while his as incomplete was 
the precursor of the Christian, and as a consequence this 
also partakes of the character of its predecessors, and is of 
course destined to pass through the stages of infancy, child- 
hood, youth, and manhood, until it attains its perfection, 
and is succeeded by something else. 

This is the logic : but it is wholly inadmissible, and with- 
out force ; inasmuch as it is defective, and contradicts the 
positive declarations of our Lord and his inspired Apostles. 

As a logical sorites, the reasoning is inconclusive ; since it 
is very far from being the case that all things which for a time 
move in a series continue to do so indefinitely. Although 
all vegetables and animals grow for a time by seasons and 
degrees, their growth has a fixed limit, beyond which they 
cannot pass ; so that, instead of inferring the farther 
advancement of Christianity from the diminutive size of 
its predecessors, w r e may rather conclude that this is itself 
the perfection after which they aspired ; that Patriarchism 
was the child, Judaism the youth, and Christianity the full- 
grown and finished man. 

But the logic is not merely defective ; it also conflicts 
with the express assertions of our divine Saviour and his 
holy Apostles. 

This is the wonderful promise of our Lord to his chosen 
followers : " The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom 
the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
things ; he will guide you into all truth."* 

St. Paul thus records the fulfilment of this promise : 



* John, xiv. 26, xyi. 13. 



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RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



" Jesus Christ hath abounded towards us in all wisdom, 
having made known unto us the mystery of his will."* 

In his address to the elders of Miletus, this Apostle utters 
these declarations : " I kept back nothing that was profitable 
unto you ; I have shewed you all things."*]" 

These Holy Scriptures prove that the Apostles both 
received and communicated " all" the truth which it is 
" profitable" and necessary for us to know, that the Gospel 
contains all this necessary truth, and that therefore it is 
actually, as it is termed in the New Testament, " the perfect 
law "J and the "perfect will of God."§ 

Illogical as well as useless is it then, when Inspiration 
itself pronounces Christianity " perfect," to argue its imper- 
fection from the imperfection of the patriarchal religion 
and Judaism. The Gospel might indeed have been imper- 
fect ; but, since it is not, it is beyond our power to overthrow 
the fact by a deduction drawn from a mere conceivable pos- 
sibility. 

Thus Rationalistic Development shows itself both unphi- 
losophical and antiscriptural; for it contradicts our observa- 
tion as well as our consciousness, to whose authority we 
must defer or annihilate ourselves ; and it conflicts with 
the revealed word of God, whose testimony we must receive, 
or renounce the truth of all history. 

The assumption therefore of the imperfection of the 
Gospel dispensation being in all respects untenable, Christ- 
ianity, as an objective revelation, is not the feeble " germ 
of a principle" to be developed more and more by circum- 
stances and the exigences of its possessors; but Christianity 
is a finished and glorious galaxy of positive truths, each as 
complete and entire at its first promulgation as it ever will 



* Eph. i. 8, 9. 
% James i. 25. 



f Acts xx. 20, 35. 
\ Rom. xii. 2. 



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215 



be. Christianity is not an " embryo shooting up amidst 
swaddling-bands and leading-strings/' each of which is to 
be laid aside as it advances in size and height ; but Christ- 
ianity is a final and perfect creation, and, like its Divine 
Author and Founder, is ever the same, " yesterday, to-day, 
and for ever and therefore is without either infancy, 
manhood, or old age, except in reference to the flight of 
time, and the reception it meets with in the successive ages 
of the world. 

As a perfect creation, the Gospel is complete in itself, 
having neither deficiency nor redundancy. The finished 
work of God, the Gospel neither requires additions of any 
kind, nor allows either contraction or diminution; for, 
in this divine system, nothing is superfluous, nothing is 
wanting. 

As the creation of God, the Gospel is perfect, just as the 
human frame is perfect. In the human body there are no 
superfluous limbs, no superfluous members, no superfluous 
senses. On the other hand, the body has no deficiencies. 
It needs neither an additional head, nor an additional eye, 
nor an additional heart, nor an additional faculty or instru- 
ment of any sort. Should any part of the human body be 
removed, it would to that extent be maimed and rendered 
weak and impotent ; while if it should receive additions, it 
w T ould not only become a monstrosity, but be deprived of a 
measure of its strength, activity, and power. 

The perfection of the human frame does in all strict- 
ness illustrate and define the perfection of the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ. In it there is nothing local and temporary, 
accidental and transient. His Gospel has no non-essential 
truths, no unnecessary institutions, no useless officers, no 
dispensable sacraments ; for, as God is the author of every 
portion of the Gospel, his infinite wisdom cannot have erred 
in making any part in vain. Every doctrine, as well as 



216 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



every outward ordinance, is his creature, and as such is no 
more to be retrenched and cast aside than are our arms or 
our heads, should we either in our stupidity or in our mad- 
ness attempt the suicidal or the murderous process. 

On the other hand, the Gospel admits of no additions. 
With the inspiration of the Apostles, the inspiration of the 
new dispensation for ever ceased ;* so that, since the com- 
pletion of the canon of the New Testament, the Holy Spirit 
has communicated no additional truth whatever, either to 
individual Christians or to the Church, whether particular 
or universal. We are no more to expect a Divine novelty 
in the Gospel than we are in the human body. In each 
have all creative acts absolutely terminated; and therefore, 
in each do all things remain as they were at their original 
formation. Hence, there can be no development of Christian 
doctrine, in the sense, either that God imparts truth not 
contained in the canonical books of the Old and New Tes- 
taments, or that the Holy Scriptures enclose a hidden 
meaning, deeper than the historical and grammatical inter- 
pretation — a spiritual meaning, revealed only to fervent 
suppliants ; for, not till the anatomist shall develop some 
new sense or some new faculty in the human body, will 
either philosopher, theologian, assembly, synod, council, or 

* " In the primitive times, the Holy Spirit fell upon believers, and they spoke 
in tongues which they had not learnt, as the Spirit gave them utterance. These 
■were signs suitable to the time. For it was right that the Holy Spirit should 
be borne witness of in all tongues throughout the whole world. That testimony 
liming been given, it passed away." — Augustine, In Evan. Johan. c. 4, Tract. 
VI. 3 10. 

" Let no one, therefore, brethren, say that, because our Lord Jesus Christ 
does not now do these things" [miracles], " therefore he prefers the former times 
of the Church to the present. For there is a passage, in which the same Lord 
sets those who do not see and yet believe, before those who believe, because 
they see." — Idem, Semi. 88, de Verb. Evan. Matt. XX. \ 2. 

"Of miraculous powers not so much as a single vestige remains." — Chrysos- 
tom, De Sacerd. lib. IV. c. 3. 



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217 



college, develop any new Christian truth. Guided, as we 
must be, exclusively by the historical and grammatical 
sense, we may indeed, by diligent and prayerful study, 
discern in the Gospel, truths before unseen by us, and of 
these truths, we may, almost to an indefinite extent, make 
new applications for instruction and edification, for reproof 
and correction, for encouragement and comfort ; but these 
new perceptions and these new purposes to which we apply 
the word of God, no more create the truths we discover 
and employ, than we create our bodies, when we investi- 
gate, for the first time, their intricate and wonderful con- 
struction, or use them in ways we had previously neglected. 
The Gospel is absolutely perfect, completely finished, sym- 
metrically entire, wanting nothing, and has been ever since 
the last Apostle "fell on sleep and saw corruption;" just 
as much so as was the human body, when, in the first 
Adam, its almighty and all-wise Creator pronounced it 
"very good."* This being the case, all theological eclecti- 
cism, gospel reform, mystical interpretation, and new arti- 
cles of faith, is creation-mending, as superfluous and unne- 
cessary as it is arrogant and sacrilegious. 

What though an Augustine and a John Robinson, a 
Whitfield and a Thomas Scott, and many others, assert, 
that, to them, truth has " broken forth" from the written 
word of God, and been "revealed to them by the Holy 

* " A complete man is neither destitute of any part necessary, and hath 
some parts, whereof, though the want could not deprive him of his essence, yet 
to have them, standeth him in singular stead, in respect of the special uses for 
which they serve ; in like sort, all those writings which contain in them the 
Law of God, all those venerable books of Scripture, all those sacred tomes and 
volumes of Holy Writ, they are with such absolute perfection framed, that in 
them there neither wanteth anything, the lack whereof might deprive us of 
life, nor anything in such wise aboundeth, that as being superfluous, unfruitful, 
and altogether needless, we should think it no loss or danger at all, if we did 
want it."— Hooker's Eccl. Pol. B. I. c. 13. 
28 



218 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



Spirit ?" we are still obliged, while we admire the sincerity 
and devotion of these distinguished men, to believe that 
they were, in this opinion, deluded and mistaken. 

The inspiration of which the Holy Spirit is, at the present 
time, the author, is not intellectual, but only moral. None 
but Prophets and Apostles ever received from the Holy 
Ghost intellectual illumination ; for the sole object of the 
grace others possess, is not to render us either revelators, 
or unerring doctrinal critics and infallible expositors, but 
to remove moral darkness from our fallen nature, to teach 
us self-knowledge, to open our eyes to our own utter cor- 
ruption and weakness, to dispel all delusive dreams con- 
cerning our own innate goodness and sufficiency, to cast 
down every high imagination, and to show us feelingly and 
practically our wretchedness through sin, that we may, 
with thankful and eager desires, welcome the great salva- 
tion the Son of God offers us. 

In the language of the eloquent Bishop Heber :* " By its 
agency on the natural faculties of the soul, the internal 
and ordinary influence of the Holy Ghost supplies us with 
recollections, ever seasonable, to support or to subdue our 
weak or rebellious nature ; it hallows our thoughts by 
attracting them to hallowed objects ; it strengthens our 
virtuous resolutions, by renewing on our mind those im- 
pressions which gave them birth ; it elevates our courage 
and humbles our pride, by suggesting to our recollection, 
at once, our illustrious destiny and the weakness of our 
unassisted nature." 

By itself it teaches nothing, but without its aid all human 
doctrine is but vain. It is this which gives life and strength 
to every truth which we hear ; this which imprints on our 
soul, and recalls to our attention, those sacred principles 



* Bampton Lectures, pp. 320-323. 



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219 



to which our reason has already assented. Distinct from 
conscience, but the vital spark by which our natural con- 
science is sanctified, it both enables us to choose the paths 
of life, and to persist in those paths • and though, like the 
free and viewless air, it is only by its effects that we discern 
it, it is the principle of our moral, as the air of our natural 
health ; the soul of our soul, and the shekinah of our bodily 
temple ! 

But, by itself it teaches nothing. It prepares our hearts, 
indeed, for the word of life, and it engrafts the word in oar 
hearts thus opened • but, thai living tcord and whatever else 
of knoicledge we receive, must be drawn from external sources. 
" Faith," we are told, " must come by hearing, and hearing 
by the word of God;" nor can we hear " without the voice 
of a preacher."* 

The inspiration of religious perception and memory, 
God's ordinary grace, induces the soul to behold the truth 
of those doctrines which external opportunities of know- 
ledge offer to her understanding ; it preserves and refreshes 
in her memory those principles of action, of which we have 
already perceived the force ; it is the blessing of God and 
his pervading energy which prospers to our salvation what 
we learn, and what we have learned ; but, ichen ice pass 
beyond these limits, we invade the regions of miracle and pro- 
phecy ; and it is no less inaccurate to suppose that in the 
ordinary course of things ice receive a neic idea from the 
grace of God, than it would be to maintain that our hioicledge 
is derived from the lamp that lights our study. 

Like that lamp, the grace of the Most High enables us 
to trace, in the oracles of salvation, the things which belong 
to our peace; like that lamp, it helps us to renew the 
decayed impression of knowledge long since obtained ; and, 

* Romans x. 17. 



£20 RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 

without such heavenly aid, the unassisted soul would be as 
unequal to the pursuit or perception of her eternal inte- 
rests as the unassisted eye to read in darkness. But, 
whether by celestial or earthly light, ice can only learn from 
that which is before us ; and the one can no more be said to 
communicate a new revelation to our souls, than the other to 
place a fresh volume on our table. 

I do not say that grace does not possess an active power, 
which not only enables us to attend and recollect, but fre- 
quently compels our attention and recollection. Nor am I 
rash enough to deny that God may, by any operation or 
any medium whatever, communicate to our souls, when he 
thinks proper, any imaginable, or, to us at present, unima- 
ginable knowledge. But this may be without offence main- 
tained (and I am the more anxious to state it clearly, 
because it is this particular point on which enthusiasm is 
most frequently mistaken), that it is by the illustration, 
not the revelation of truth, that God's Spirit ordinarily 
assists us; and that the latter is one of those cases of 
Divine interference, of which neither the pre'sent age of 
Christianity, nor, perhaps, any preceding age since the time 
of the Apostles, affords us an authentic example."* 

* " The effects of the Spirit, as fa?' as they concern knowledge and instruction, 
are not particular information for resolution in any doubtful case, for this were 
plainly revelation, but, as the angel which was sent to Cornelius informs him 
not, but sends him to Peter to school ; so the Spirit teaches not, but stirs up in 
us a desire to learn : a desire to learn makes us athirst after the means ; and 
pious sedulity and carefulness makes us watchful in the choice, and diligent in 
the use of our means. The promise to the Apostles of the Spirit which should 
lead them into all truth was made good unto them by private and secret inform 
ing their understandings with the knowledge of high and heavenly mysteries, 
which had as yet never entered into the conceit of any man. The same pro- 
mise is made to us. For, what was written by revelation in their hearts, 
for our instruction have they written in our books ; to us, for information, 
otherwise than out of these books, the Spirit speaks not. When the Spirit 
regenerates a man, it infuses no knowledge of any point of faith, but sends 
him to the Church and to the Scriptures. More than this, in the ordinary 



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Not merely Augustine and the men who embraced his 
doctrinal views claimed divine inspiration in support of their 
system, but the same pretensions are urged by their oppo- 
nents, Lcelius Socinus and John Wesley, and even by the 
infidel Lord Herbert. But the Holy Spirit cannot be the 
author of conflicting and irreconcilable revelations; and 
therefore we are compelled to deny the special intel- 
lectual illumination from on high of every man, no matter 
how respected his name, and great his influence in the 
world, until he proves by miracles that he speaks by the 
movement and suggestion of the Holy Ghost.* 

But after all, is there no such thing in Christianity as 
Admissible Development ? 

This question receives, in part, its true answer from 
Vincent of Lirins, a Gallican Father of the fifth century, 
who, when he is interrogated, " What ! nothing new ? 
Must there be no proficiency, no improvement of religion 
in the Christian Church ?" thus most ably replies : " Yes, 
without doubt, very much ; but, then we must be sure not 
to change Christianity, under pretence of improving it. To 
improve anything to the utmost, is to enlarge it to the just 
standard and perfection of its own nature. It is the duty 
of every Christian to increase and grow in understanding, 
knoidedge, and ivisdom, but he must continue a Christian 
still ; the growth must be natural, in one and the same land 
of faith, in the same meaning, and in the same mind. The 
Christian faith must never admit of any alteration in its 
essential properties, either by augmentation or diminution, 
but its definition or essence must always continue one and 

proceedings of the Holy Spirit, in matter of instruction, I yet could never 
descry. Which I do the rather note, because by experience we have learnt, 
how apt men are to call their private conceits the Spirit." — Golden Remains of 
the ever-memorable John Hales of Eton College, 1G59, p. 14. 
* Faber on Election, pp. 59-65. 

I 



222 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



the same. Method, beauty, and clearness, and such kind 
of embellishments, may be added to the word of God, but 
then every kind must continue distinct and entire in its 
own proper nature. Succeeding ages may set off, file, and 
polish the ancient doctrines, but they must never change, 
never retrench, or mutilate anything, the doctrines may 
admit of more evidence, clearness, and distinction, but they 
must be inviolably preserved in their full, entire, primitive 
perfection."* 

The development of which Vincent thus speaks is evi- 
dently intellectual development, an increased knowledge of 
revealed truth. This kind of development is not only 
allowable, but also obligatory, as we are commanded by 
an Apostle to "grow in the knowledge of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ."f 

But St. Peter also says in the same passage, " Grow in 
grace," and therefore there is still one other kind of develop- 
ment which the Gospel permits and binds upon the con- 
science of every one of its professors. It is practical 
development. The embodiment and manifestation of 
Christian truth and holiness in our dispositions and con- 
duct ; increasing appropriation by us of the grace of Christ ; 
and advancing growth in him. This species of development 
we practise when we possess and cultivate the Christian 
virtues : when, in obedience to the injunction of St. Peter, 
we " add to our faith" these other fruits of true religion, 
divinely engrafted in our hearts, " virtue and temperance, 
patience and goodness, brotherly kindness and charity :"J 
when, (as we pray he may,) God " increases in us his mani- 
fold gifts of grace, and we daily increase in his Holy Spirit 
more and more."§ 

Of more developments than these two, growth in know- 



* Commonitory, chaps. 28 and 29. f 2 Peter iii. 18. 

X 2 Peter i. 5, 7. g Confirmation Office. 



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ledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and growth in grace, 
Christianity knows nothing. If we seek for others, we shall 
open the door to every species of error and fanaticism ; we 
shall leave the narrow and safe path our Saviour Christ 
hath marked out for us to walk in • we shall depart either 
to the superstitious traditions of Romanism on the one 
hand, or to the freezing abstractions of Rationalism on the 
other; we shall be recreant to the faith of Christ crucified; 
we shall show ourselves untrue witnesses, and unfaithful 
keepers of Holy Writ; we shall expose ourselves to the 
malediction of our sovereign and jealous Lord, who will 
not give his glory to another; "If any man add unto these 
things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written 
in this book : and if any man shall take away from the 
words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away 
his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city."* 

In vision St. John saw war in heaven, Michael and his 
angels fighting against the dragon and his angels, and pre- 
vailing over them. The same war is there now on earth, 
and it will be waged with the same victorious results. It 
is a contest between the Messiah and Satan, between the 
Church and the world, between faith and reason, between 
truth and error, between holiness and sin. 

Though our enemies may not yet be the Gog and Magog 
of Divine prophecy, yet Infidelity, with its Rationalistic 
equipments, is not only the boastful Goliath who defies the 
armies of the living God, but also the desolating Babylonish 
invader, who defiles the Lord's sanctuary, and fills Jeru- 
salem with the slain of his people. 

Pledged to your incarnate and glorified Saviour by your 
baptismal vows, as many of you are, beloved brethren, be- 
ware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain 



* Rev. xxii. 18, 19. 



2C4 



RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENT. 



deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of 
the world, and not after Christ ; and fight manfully under 
his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and con- 
tend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. 

For this trying strife and dangerous warfare, take to 
yourselves the whole armour of God, that you may be able 
to withstand in these evil days. Clothed with his pano- 
ply — truth and righteousness, the peaceful gospel, a shield- 
ing faith, and the hope of heaven — wield these assailing 
instruments ; for they are the sword and arm of the Spirit, 
the word of God, and the power of prayer ; and you shall, 
like Michael and his angels, prevail and conquer, through 
the might of the Captain of our salvation ; who is with us 
in all our perils, and achieves our conquests for us. Thus, 
fighting the good fight of faith, laying hold upon our eternal 
life, and continuing Christ's faithful soldiers and servants 
unto your lives' end, you shall have the fruition of the re- 
ward he promises to unfailing zeal and devoted service, to 
triumphant success and exterminating victory — " To him 
that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, 
even as I also overcame, and am sit down with my Father 
in his throne."* 

May this bliss and glory be ours, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 



* Rev. iii. 21. 



%\t Inspiration of \\t Hfflg Striatum. 




BY REV. JOHN B. KERFOOT, D.D., ' 

RECTOR OF THE COLLEGE OF ST. JAMES, MARYLAND. 



29 



VIII. 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLT SCRIP- 



HE Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, duly considered, 



presents itself as a Fact, and as a Doctrine. 
The subject ranks, most properly, among the Evidences 
of our Faith; and yet it is one with which the Infidel can 
have no rightful concern. It is only when any man has 
admitted the fact of a revelation, and that the Bible is its 
reliable Record, that he can in reason ask : What is the true 
character of the Book which thus attests and accompanies 
this revelation ? Is it, though an authentic, still, only a 
human record of a Divine dispensation ? That is, such a 
record as any man, with full intellectual and moral, but 
yet strictly natural qualifications, might have made, if his 
own observation, or the reliable testimony of others, had 
given him the requisite knowledge ? Or, is the Record 
itself the Word of God ? Did He write the histories ? Did 
He record the oral teachings ? Did these lessons of doc- 
trines and duties, these prophecies of things future, come 
to us, in matter and form, from God ? Is this His word, 
or mans word ? In the Bible, does God speak of Himself 
to man ? Or does man speak to his fellow man of God ? 
Is this Book the product of human genius and piety, work- 
ing naturally, though extraordinarily? Or, did God inspire 



TUBES. 




(227) 



S£3 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

certain chosen men to utter His word, using special human 
minds supernaturallij, sometimes as His instruments, and 
sometimes as His agents, to give to His truth a sure and 
accurate utterance and record among men ? 

These inquiries may be fairly made by any one who has 
come within the domain of belief, b}^ accepting Christianity 
as Divine, and the Bible as its true record. But, in the 
mouth of unbelievers, all such questions are premature, 
and therefore must be only cavils and snares. In a word, 
Inspiration is not one of the outer defences of the fortress 
of our Religion ; it is one of its inner strongholds, of its 
holiest shrines. The believer will approach it, as such, 
with great reverence and care. Investigation, nevertheless, 
is here, as on other points, his duty. He needs it for the 
enlightenment of his own faith ; and still more for its de- 
fence, just now, chiefly against men who, whether they 
know it or not, are foes to the truth ; whose entrance among 
us is insidious, and whose real end, if not their conscious 
aim, must be, to betray this sanctuary, of which they claim 
to be the only wise defenders. It is maintained, therefore, 
that a hearty acceptance of the facts of the Sacred History 
as real, of the Bible as their Record, and of the Revelation 
as supernatural, must precede any honest inquiries about 
inspiration, its nature, proofs, and limits. 

A preliminary glance at these will open the whole subject 
to us. 

To prove the fact, and, still more, to enable us to realize 
the nature of Inspiration, we must retrace the ground over 
which the argument for the fact of a Revelation would have 
carried us. For, Revelation is one fact and Inspiration is 
another; and we must, in discussing them, sever two things 
which our religion and our ordinary thoughts blend very 
much into one. There is Revelation, when God speaks to 



KERF GOT. 



men without using any one or more men specially to receive 
and convey His message. There is Inspiration, when His 
Spirit uses human spirits — whether or not these act con- 
sciously or with full intelligence — as His means of sending 
His word to other men. For example ; God spoke audibly 
to the Israelites under Mount Sinai.* That was mere Re- 
velation. He also frequently spoke to them through Moses, 
whose spirit God's Spirit taught and used. This was In- 
spiration, as a means of Revelation. Again, God wrote 
fearful words on the wall before the eyes of the feasters in 
Babylon If That was an act of Revelation ; or, rather, 
would have been exclusively such, if the written words 
had, at once, expressed their true import to the gazers : 
while His making known to Daniel the hidden meaning of 
the words was Inspiration. Balaam J was unwillingly, and 
Caiaphas§ unconsciously God's prophet; and both, though 
in the very act of sin, w T ere inspired to utter His Truth. 

A voice from heaven, or words or symbols written there 
with a meaning clear to men, would be a revelation from 
God. But when God supernatural ly selects, informs, and 
attests one man as His medium of communication with 
other men, then He inspires that man for such special use 
and occasion. He may reveal through this inspired man, 
a special, temporary command ; or some precept or truth 
of permanent authority ; or some warning of events yet to 
come. Or He may so inform or direct the mind that the 
historical record shall answer its special end, and be guarded 
from all error. He may direct His messenger to use 
symbols, or spoken words, or written words. In any case 

* Exod. xix. and xx. ; and Deut. v. 4. 
f Dan. v. 

% Numbers xxiii. and xxiv. 
? St. John ii. 49-52. 



£30 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

the word is from God * and is made to come accurately and 
definitely to us. Thus God spoke to men supern aturally, 
and through some chosen individuals of the race. 

These men, and their natural powers and personal 
acquirements and habits, God prepared, and then used 
supernaturally to give through them a sure and definite 
utterance, by speech and by pen, to that truth which man 
needs to know, and in the various ways by which he needs 
to learn it : and what remains to us now in Holy Scripture 
is God's Eecord of the past, and His perpetual announce- 
ment of what we are to believe, to do, and to look for. 
The Divine and the human elements are both real in that 
Book. The Divine element makes it an instruction entire 
and infallible. The human element makes it available to 
men, and adapts it to all their wants. Now there are, we 
thus see, a Fact to be proved ; and a Doctrine to be explained 
and defended. 

Assuming then here that a Revelation was necessary, — a 
point attested by all history, by the ceaseless yearnings of 
man's heart and the struggles of his intellect, and by his 
hopeless failures in every effort of his own to find any satis- 
fying, permanent solution of his spiritual difficulties ; and, 
simply suggesting that the significant fact — that God sends 
to us all His precious gifts by the hands of a chosen few, 
whom He appoints and enables to work for the many, — 
affords fair presumption that any Revelation would come 
to the whole race through the agency of some persons 
specially qualified ; and that for a work clearly super- 
natural, the qualifications must be supernatural ; we may 
claim all the reason of things, and the full analogy of 
nature and Providence in favour of the theory we have 
proposed, as consistent with a sound philosophy. 



* See Bp. Ilorsley's Sermons (XV. & XVIII.) on 2 Pet. I 20, 21. 



KERFOOT. 



2S1 



We will pass at once to inquire into the fact, — Has God 
taught men by spoken and written words of Inspired 
Truth ? What are the proofs ? 

In the two centuries preceding the present, unbelief 
denied this fact, as neither proven nor possible. Now it 
generally admits the fact, but puts forth a doctrine wdrich 
nullifies it. To indicate, then, what seems to be the true 
way of proving the fact against any w r ho resort to the old 
method of denying it; and, still more, to quicken in the 
mind the true idea of Inspiration, we must (as was before 
said) cast our eyes over some of the ground which an 
argument for a Revelation w^ould traverse. God chose to 
effect the Eevelation by the supernatural inspiration of some 
individuals of our race : hence the proofs of both facts are 
very much the same. 

The true, direct proof of Inspiration is such as this : — 
Here, before and among us, is the Church of Christ, the 
visible Body of the professors of the Faith. Nothing can 
be made historically more certain than that this Christian 
Church has existed for more than eighteen hundred years. 
No other fact of history is so certain, save it be the con- 
tinuous existence of the race of man. The language of 
an infidel historian best expresses our whole idea :* " The 
Christian Eepublic, which gradually formed an independent 
and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire." 

And second to this fact in certainty, and only second to 
it, is the further fact that she has always had a book — this 
book, the Bible — in her safe-keeping.f Her records prove 
when and how she received it, and how carefully she has 
preserved, and how deeply she has always, everywhere, 

* Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," &c, chap. xv. 

f See Hooker Eccl. Pol. bk. III. viii. 14, and Butler's Analogy, Part II. ch. 
i., and his sermon on Matthew xxiv. 14. 



232 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 



and by all her members, reverenced it as God's Book. No 
other book has been so received and kept, or has so come 
down to us. Choose which you will as the most esteemed, 
best proven book of all antiquity, it has next to no proof 
along side of this, the Book which the Church has kept. 

In an argument against unbelief of any grade, in behalf 
of the fact of a Revelation given by means of Inspiration, 
we need present the Church only as a well-organized, 
permanent human society, which has all along faithfully 
discharged the office here attributed to her. As Christians, 
discussing among ourselves this question of Inspiration, we 
might rightly go further, and claim reverence for the testi- 
mony of the Church as the Divinely constituted and com- 
missioned Conservator and Witness of the Inspired Word 
among men. But in either view, this Church of Christ 
offers proofs regarding the authorship, preparation, delivery, 
reception, and preservation of this Book, or rather collec- 
tion of books, such as can be adduced for no other book 
extant, dating even a century back. Apply to the New 
Testament (and the same is true of the Old Testament) 
every criterion by which the most cautious historian can 
now test any ancient record of the history of men — apply 
it with the utmost stringency, and the Sacred Record will 
triumph by means of the proofs which this Society, the 
Church, brings out abundantly on every necessary point. 
Hence, if there be anywhere any trustworthy history of 
facts, we have one here. For these books and their authors 
were fully believed in at the first. Those who knew all 
about the men and the facts, trusted both. These books 
are the accredited writings of the accredited witnesses, by 
eye and by ear, of all they record. This permanent, 
Sacred Society accredits the books and the writers. She 
testifies that both came to her with unmistakeable, super- 



KER FOOT. 



233 



natural attestation from God ; and that among her perpetual 
offices, is this one — to bear such testimony to ail men 
through all time. 

And new doctrines, offered as from God, come to us 
inseparably intemvoven with the facts of the history. Who- 
ever pronounces the doctrines to be wilful deceits, must 
deny the facts. By no rules of fair criticism can the his- 
tory be accepted as true, if the doctrines be rejected as 
impostures. Some of the Books* record lessons of doctrine, 
at first taught orally ,f others profess to be direct written 
lessons of truth from God, through those writers whom He 
commissioned and inspired to write them. And these doc- 
trines are, I say, inseparably interwoven with the facts of 
the history, the history of the inspired teachers, of the 
deeds done by them and their associates, and of the times 
in which they lived. If they are wilfully false teachers, 
they cannot be reliable historians ; but if their facts be 
accepted, their doctrines cannot be torn loose and rejected 
as deceits. 

Many, moreover, of these facts are miracles — unmistake- 
able proofs of superhuman agency. Of these miracles many 
bear too evidently the impress of Heaven to be attributed 
— even if viewed apart from the doctrine they attested — 
to any evil power. But taken — as all the miracles must 
be taken — in the strictest union with the doctrines, these 
two — the miracles of mercy and the doctrines of truth and 
holiness — mutually attest each other. Disparage the 
doctrines or the miracles as any one may, we must feel as 
the first converts did, that Satan never devised those doc- 
trines ; man never wrought those miracles ; and, therefore, 

* The Gospels and the Acts. 

f 1 Corinthians vii. 10, 40, and 2 Peter iii. 15, 16, on the exclusive sense in 
■which the word " Scripture'' is used in the New Testament. See Wordsworth 
on Inspiration, &c, pp. 200 and 203. 
30 



£C4 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

the union and mutual attestation of such miracles and 
such doctrines, prove that God gave both. It was He who 
wrought, and He who spoke. The act, and the word — 
written or spoken — were His. From no one source save God 
could the two, the doctrines and the miracles, have come 
forth thus inseparably tied together. Nay, the doctrines 
and precepts, viewed by themselves, must be from heaven. 
Earth had never conceived such truth or such virtue before. 
Man had done his best, but he had never at all approached 
this system of belief and duty, so evidently not of any earthly 
origin. Any how, it never could have had any alliance 
with imposture, or received any support from the powers of 
evil. The attesting miracles must, then, have been real 
and Divine. They were the finger of God affixing His 
name, and setting His seal to the doctrines and precepts 
as His. The document and the seal confirm each other's 
genuineness. In either we see God. In both united, we 
see such proof of His direct intervention as makes unbelief 
folly. 

, But further — What do these writers claim for themselves 
and their books in this respect ? 

The facts and the men are proved to be above all sus- 
picion. Their pure doctrines and holy precepts make all 
supposition of wilful deceit impossible. Their miraculous 
proofs exclude not only this supposition, but also any idea 
of unconscious, enthusiastic error. God will not attest 
any kind of error. What character, then, do these writers 
claim for their teaching? — "We speak (say they) not in 
the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the 
Holy Ghost teacheth"* — "When ye received the word of 
God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word 



* 1 Cor. ii. 13, 



K E R F 0 0 T. 



2T5 



of men, but (as it is in truth) the word of God"* — " All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God."f 

Such is their claim, often repeated, in behalf of the 
word spoken, and the icord written ; and that such a claim 
was so made by men commissioned openly, as they were, 
by God, is proof that the claim is just. That this claim 
was admitted by tens of thousands then, at the cost of 
every earthly interest, and of the abandonment of all other 
previous belief or unbelief, shows how overwhelming the 
proofs must have been. That then, and all along, since, 
and now, the purest affections of the heart, and the noblest 
faculties of the intellect of man, whenever and wherever 
he has appeared most like Gocl, have accepted and adopted 
these truths and precepts as most worthy of God as their 
author, and as meeting all of man's moral and spiritual 
wants, and answering all the demands of his purest reason 
— this voice from within proves that He made the Holy 
Scriptures who made us men. And when we look out over 
men and their doings, and God's Providential government, 
and see these truths and precepts ruling all that is noble 
and enduring in the world, conquering every foe, and 
elevating every friend and disciple, then we see that the 
Holy Scriptures must have come from Him who rules the 
world and dispenses its blessings. True enough ; a bitter 
contest against this truth — of the inspiration of the Bible — 
has been ceaselessly maintained. The evil heart of unbelief, 
now coarse and vulgar, and now crafty and polished in its 
assaults, has been ever assailing this claim of the Bible to 
be, in a sense exclusively and peculiarly its own, God's 
Word. Unbelieving minds are misled, and timid ones dis- 

* 1 Thess. ii. 13. 

% 2 Timothy iii. 16. The force of the passage is the same wherever the verb 
" is"— which is not in the original, be supplied in the translation. " The whole 
Scripture is inspired of God, and is," &c.,— or " The whole Scripture being 
inspired of God— [i. e. because it is, &c.) is also profitable," &c. 



236 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

heartened; but, age after age, all comes to nought; and 
whatever form, or whatever course of opposition such 
infidelity may adopt, all history is ever proving that " who- 
soever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on 
whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."* 

But here the question is rightly asked — " Hoio does God 
inspire men ?" What is the mode — the process, so to speak, 
by and in which God inspires, breathes His Spirit into some 
men's minds, thereby making them His prophets? The 
right answer to such a question is not merely a point of 
interest, but one of great practical importance ; because (as 
was before said) the fashion has grown up to grant the fact 
of a Divine Inspiration, but then so to explain it and 
account for it as to leave us no one Book of God, no sure, 
sacred standard of Truth. A century since, unbelief con- 
fessed itself Deism, or even Atheism. It knew no religion, 
and often no God. But man's heart recoiled from a thing 
so hideous. Nations under its sway were perishing. New 
forms of unbelief had therefore to be invented; or, more 
accurately, old and forgotten ones had to be revived ; less 
revolting, but in feet not, in the end, less deadly. A most 
subtle and plausible form of unbelief now assails Revelation 
at this vital point of its special Inspiration ; and serious- 
minded men regard this assault as highly perilous because 
so craftily concealed. What this false philosophy is, can be 
made clearer after we have seen how the true believer would 
regard and speak of Inspiration. 

We know that God revealed His will by visions and by 
voices, by granting special, fore-appointed signs, and by angelic 
messengers. Such are the express assertions of Scripture ; 
and as they admit of no denial, consistent with any acceptance 
of the history as true, so, once admitted as facts, they seem 



* St. Matt. xxi. 44. 



KERF 00 T. 



2£7 



to us to require no special explanation, because they so 
much resemble our sensible modes of communication among 
ourselves. 

But God's Spirit also acted directly and immediately on 
the Spirit of the man inspired. "For the prophecy or 
teaching ['of Scripture'] came not ever — at any time — by 
the will of man — but holy men of God spake, being moved 
(or borne onward) by the Holy Ghost."* 

How, precisely, the Holy Ghost actually affected and used 
the minds and faculties of His prophetic agents, we are not 
told, and therefore we cannot tell. But this, though a 
mystery, is no objection to the fact ; for we have the like 
mystery and fact united in our daily experience and inter- 
course one with another. We feel and know that among 
us spirit acts on spirit. We can, it is true, name some few 
instruments or media used ; as, for example, words to the 
eye or ear, symbols, gestures, and the like. But reflection 
will show us that this use of material things to enable 
spirits to communicate with each other only adds to the 
mystery. And why is it that thought and feeling will flash 
in the eye, and deep or wild emotion pervade the crowd, 
by (what we call) sympathy ? Who can tell why or how ? 
No one. The rationale men give of such things, if it ever 
be more than words, merely tells of a step or two in a pro- 
cess whose real nature we can never fathom. And who 
knows not that thoughts and feelings of good and evil come 
— he cannot tell how — but it seems as if spirits brought them 
to his spirit ? And what Christian does not delight to believe 
that the Holy Spirit of God and pure angels speak with his 
spirit, to warn and encourage? Then there is no reason why 
we should doubt that, even in ways and measures beyond 
these, a special and peculiar action of the Holy Spirit on cer- 

* 2 Peter i. 21. See Bp. Horsley's 15th sermon, and in it his view of the 
prophets' inspiration. 



218 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

tain human spirits may occur ; that He may select and prepare 
some few men to be the Channels of His Truth to all men. 
Things as certainly as this within the spiritual world, and 
as really beyond our power to explain, do occur to ourselves 
every hour. There is no inherent contradiction in the act, 
and all mere difficulties cease before Omnipotence. So 
that, really, reason has not one well-grounded doubt to urge 
when the fact is asserted by men attested as the sacred 
writers were. 

And what can the infidel say in explanation of the fact 
that prophecies have been uttered and verified ? One pro- 
phecy, full and minute, and clearly beyond the reach of 
human sagacity to devise or created power to accomplish, 
proves, when the accomplishment has come, that God has 
spoken to man, and through Mm to his fellow-men. Now we 
have many such prophecies : and, just -as easily as prophecy, 
may also doctrine or precept be communicated from God. 

Further — in these acts of Inspiration, God has selected, 
as we might expect that He would, the men and the modes 
best suited to His various purposes. Different agents were 
chosen, who were used in different ways, according to the 
occasion and service. Sometimes we see that the very 
words were dictated ; at others, the form of the message 
partook of the peculiarities of the messenger. Nay, evi- 
dently, these messengers were often chosen because of their 
special qualifications in temper, intellect, or talent for a pro- 
posed work. Their individual peculiarities were not obli- 
terated, but were regarded as the reason for their selection 
by God for special kinds of work. Truth and duty have 
very various parts and aspects, and men vary much in their 
needs. In religion, as in everything else, God mercifully 
regards every man's wants, and sends what is necessary to 
each nation and to each man, in the way and through the 
agency by which it can be best transmitted and received. 



KERF 0 OK. 



£39 



Therefore have we the four histories of Christ, by four 
authors, differing entirely in natural endowments and tem- 
peraments, as well as in training and attainments. They 
wrote each to meet the wants of different classes of men 
and of minds, then and to the end of time. Yet their dis- 
tinct portraitures of the Divine Original, and their inde- 
pendent records of His acts and teachings, all make up the 
grand unit. The whole man of each author is seen in his 
work, as fully as though he wrote of his own unguicled 
motion. And yet the One Spirit is seen in every line. The 
Saviour of men, His example and lessons, are presented 
in all their aspects, and the needs of all souls of men are 
supplied, for the Author of all truth teaches all men through 
those whom He inspires. 

So, too, have we Paul and John, Peter and James,* all dis- 
tinctly marked as men, and not less as authors. Their 
office was to declare and enforce the doctrines and precepts 
of the new religion. To each one of them had that reli- 
gion come home with an influence suited to the needs of 
the man. Each looked upon the new faith with his own 
eyes, and took it into his own heart ; and each one taught 
and wrote as he saw and felt. And yet, none the less, God 
taught in and through them all, because he would so meet 
the wants of all men to all time ; so that the subjective 
faith which justifies man, the heavenly love which sancti- 
fies him, the burning zeal which will energize in men's 
hearts and regenerate the world, and the holy obedience 
which at once demonstrates man's faith and renders honour 
to his God, might ever be uttering forth the voices which 
men would need and long to hear, some one voice and some 
another ; while all the voices together made up the one 
harmony of Inspired Truth. 

* See Westcott's Gospel Harmony, pp. 28-31. 



£40 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

Thus, every endowment and even every peculiar charac- 
teristic in an inspired messenger would be needed. Nothing 
but infirmity was unfitted for some work or other, in some 
quarter or other, of this prophetic and inspired teaching of 
men. Hence, in the Old and New Testament writers we 
see every variety of endowment and attainment. We note 
the most marked intellectual and ethical peculiarities • and 
yet every one seems, as is really the fact, chosen to do some 
special office needed by some peculiar classes of men whom 
God would instruct. Not the less did the message come, 
in every case, by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost, true 
as He who sent it. Human infirmity was never allowed 
to mar one lineament of Divine Truth. The message was 
true in its substance and in every expression of it.* And 
the Fabric of all necessary religious Truth was thus com- 
pleted. The Master-builder gave each man the work he 
was best fitted to do, and the material most suited to his 
special task. Lookers-on see only men running hither and 
thither, as though confusedly pursuing disconnected or 
inconsistent aims. But each one is on his own right errand, 
and his work is appointed him. He may not himself know 
all or much about its proper share or place in the edifice, 
but He who plans and controls sees the end from the begin- 
ning ; and a glorious, a perfect, and an enduring structure 
is the result. So is it ; and so Faith and Reason see it to 
be in the Blessed Book of God. 

Faith and Reason, I say, for they both must unite to 
make up man's belief. On this point they ought to receive 
the fact of inspiration, as true of all the books of the Holy 
Scripture, and as true of every part of them all, as guaran- 
teeing on God's authority the accuracy of all the history, 
the obligation of every command, the truth of every doc- 



* Bp. Horsier, Ser. XVIII. 



KERFOOT. 



241 



trine, and the certainty of every promise or prophecy. 
Inspiration, to be real, must control even every word ; not 
so as in any sense to make it not the word of man, but to 
make it also so to be God's word as to be the most apt 
and direct, and profitable expression of the Truth ; so that, 
truly interpreted, no word is superfluous, and none can 
mislead.* 

And yet the inspiration is not mechanical. It does not 
make the inspired man to act as a machine ; but always as 
an agent whose nature still works according to its laws, 
though for the time and occasion lifted up to an use which 
it could not fulfil without the extraordinary motion of God's 
Spirit.f 

A lower theory than this may, and often does, consist 
with a sincere faith ; but must keep it, I believe, in con- 
tinual peril. To illustrate this peril, and thereby to prove 
that, since in these days we are compelled to have some 
philosophy of inspiration, we can be safe in no lower 
theory than such an one as has been now advocated, I 
will exhibit two other views held by honest, hearty believ- 
ers of our own age. They will pretty well fill up the space 
between the true philosophy on this point, and the scheme 
which I shall afterwards describe and oppose as rank 
unbelief, poorly disguised. 

The less objectionable of these two views comes to us 

* Hooker Eccl. Pol. B. V. 21 : 2 & 3." The word of God is His heavenly truth 
touching matters of eternal life revealed and uttered unto men ; unto Prophets 
and Apostles by immediate divine inspiration, from them to us by their books 
and writings. We therefore have no word of God but the Scripture/' " The 
word of God for the Author's sake hath credit with all that confess it (as we all 
do) to be His word ; every proposition of Holy Scripture, every sentence, being to 
us a principle." 

\ See Westcott's Gospel Harmony, pp. 225, 226, for " Seven Propositions" 
drawn from " the primitive teaching on Inspiration." 
31 



242 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

with the sanction of one,* whose genius and sincerity all 
acknowledge. 

He avows his deep faith in all the cardinal doctrines of 
our religion, and finds in the Holy Scriptures all the guid- 
ance his soul craves from God. He insists on the agency 
of the Church and the Ministry as essential to the Blessed 
Spirit's work in enlightening us. And yet his theory of 
Inspiration is one which would expel such faith as his from 
most minds. He regards the Bible as only a human record 
of a Divine Revelation ; though a very reliable record, and 
one made under clearly Providential ordering. No words 
in it are properly God's words, unless where the fact is 
specially stated in any case. The historical books may, 
nay, do contain errors, and are marked by the mistakes 
and discrepancies to which historical writing is ordinarily 
liable. The Epistles in the New Testament seem to have 
no very definite authority; and to be consistent he can 
allow them none properly Divine. 

We are to test all Scripture by our own " secret com- 
muning;" and by such a use of it to draw forth gradually 
whatever in it may be true, or suitable and useful to our- 
selves. God's will and truth are to be gathered from the 
tone and spirit of the Bible as a whole, not from any expli- 
cit, authoritative statements, save the few specially declared 
to be made in His words. There are such direct messages, 
however; and therefore the fact of a plenary Inspiration is 
fully allowed. But its universality is denied. Parts of 
the book, so far from being His, are erroneous. Nay, some 
parts are perilous to good morals and true belief, for pre- 
cepts, examples, and teachings, are not merely recorded 
historically, but commended (by implication, at least), 
which yet our conscience and reason must reject. The 



* Culoriclge's " Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit." 



K E R F 0 0 T. 



245 



Apostles treat as facts the fancies and popular traditions 
of their nation. Thus, human agency brought all its 
usual infirmity with it into the preparation of the Holy 
Scriptures. The divine element is not merely conjoined 
with the human, but perilously confused with it. The 
" treasure is in earthen vessels" in such a sense that few 
men would recognise, as Coleridge did, that therewith is 
also that " excellency of power" which can come from God 
only. 

Most of the objections which Coleridge brings against the 
theory which has been now advocated, and which he con- 
fesses to be that sanctioned by the highest names in all 
ages, lie in fairness only against misconceptions or mis- 
statements of it, not against a living Inspiration dwelling 
in the whole written Word, in the Church, and in each 
believer. Such an Inspiration does not " petrify" Revela- 
tion, but while it recognises in it, as in the Incarnate Word, 
a definite human form, it makes that form one of beauty 
and of active life. It suggests no idea of an " Automaton." 
It does not confound all truths and facts as of one measure 
of value and importance. God uses here human skill and 
art, as various as that which works and refines the metals 
He hides in the mines of the earth. The iron and the gold 
are equally of God. Rudely wrought or elegantly moulded, 
both are still equally His, and have their separate and most 
valuable uses for man. So is it in His Book ; and in this 
view we cannot " worship" the mere letter, for we see the 
Living Spirit. We cannot make the Truth to be a dead 
thing, wholly external and objective, for we hold that the 
same Spirit dwells now in the Church and in ourselves 
which wrote the word and put into it an imperishable life 
and power. Nor would any sober-minded believer impose 
on others his own philosophy of Inspiration as an article 
of faith, though he must contend earnestly against any 



244 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

philosophy or any point of faith which tends to make men 
nullify all creeds. The theory commended in this lecture, 
acknowledging as it does in all its fulness the human ele- 
ment in God's Word, gives free scope, nay utters solemn 
command, to the human mind to study and investigate the 
Written Word with all zeal and holy boldness. God's 
Spirit and man's must and will witness together in such 
right study. Intellect and heart will so advance farther 
and deeper into the truth of Heaven ; and the Bible will 
have all — nay more than all — the freshness and power 
which other theories vainly profess to secure it ; while the 
scepticism and pride of the human heart will be quelled by 
the full presence of the Divine Spirit. 

A sadder illustration still of the peril of a lax or wrong 
philosophy of Inspiration is given by a recent Essayist* 
more bold than reverent, and more misty than instructive. 
If Divine Inspiration be anything real, his view of it, inde- 
finite as it is, is very irreverent. It is a fearful indication 
of the downward tendency of rationalism even in the 
Church, that her ministers can so think and write. 

The inspiration of the classic poet (he tells us) and of 
the pagan oracle was as real, nay essentially the same as 
St. Paul's. The great Apostle acknowledged this to be so, 
when going forth among the heathen to preach the Gospel, 
he advanced his claim as a teacher inspired from Heaven. 
He then only recognised and perpetuated the old heathen 
idea as true. The inspiration of the devotee of Bacchus he 
claimed to have been the influence of his own Divine Master, 
and therefore to be now active in himself; the only real 
difference being that the gift was now more abundant. 
Where reverent believers have been wont heretofore to see 
human fraud or diabolical aid, there we are henceforth to 

* Rev. F. D. Maurice, "Theol. Essays," Ess. XIII. on "Inspiration." 



K E R F 0 0 T. 



believe that the same Holy Spirit was working whose guid- 
ance we had deemed God gave to His Church and people 
through Prophets and Apostles, as it was given to no men 
by any other agency. Because the word "inspiration" is 
applied sometimes to the ordinary grace and guidance of 
the Holy Spirit, as offered to all who seek Him, there- 
fore there is no such thing as an extraordinary illumination 
constituting the Prophets. The gift is the same. Nay, 
worse yet. When the fanatic exhibits fierce zeal, and 
carries away the people, we are not to deny his claim to the 
true Inspiration, but are to warn him of the sin and peril 
of abusing his high gift, or rather his large measure of the 
gift all have, did they but know it, The " poets, prophets, 
priestesses" were inspired as truly, though not so fully as 
Moses and Isaiah, as Paul and John. Fanaticism is Inspi- 
ration misused. The humble reader of the Bible is inspired 
— not merely as truly (this we believe), but in the same 
way and sense, to understand what he reads now, as the 
writer was inspired to pen it. Where and how then, are 
we to be assured of the truth ? All men are inspired. So 
are all books. The Bible is only chief among books ; not 
the Booh, as none besides can be. " Common books and 
the chief book, nature and grace, earth and heaven," are 
before us all, that we may learn thence how to be saved. 
Alas ! for the perpetuity of the Gospel among men, if this 
were their view of its inspiration. Blessed indeed are 
they who can hear or read and believe, without any 
philosophy consciously developed, if the science of theology 
must thus undermine the foundations of everything dis- 
tinctive in Christianity, and make the " testimony of Jesus, 
which is the Spirit of prophecy," a mocking delusion to 
bewildered man ! 

Such as these, then, being evidently the only theories 
which an honest belief can devise, besides the one already 



246 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

advocated here, are we not shut in to the stricter philosophy 
on this point as the only true and safe one ? It is not 
within my plan to offer any detailed proof of it from the 
Scriptures. These directly assert,* what the example of 
our Lordf and His ApostlesJ in quoting and arguing from 
the Old Testament clearly teaches, that each word contains 
as its sense and design, God's Truth. The whole method 
and agency were just what, so far as our own reason can 
judge, were the best for us that our God could have adopted, 
and most like all His works of love for man. Objections 
vanish when men come to reason fairly, or to be content 
not to know what they cannot comprehend, or to await in 
this, as in all things else, the growth of our knowledge. 
God spoke and wrote; and despite all the changes and 
chances of time, and the sins of men, He has by the hands 
of His Church brought His Word safely and purely to us of 
this age. And it comes to us now not a dry, dead thing, 
but still cherished and illustrated by His Church, and still 
quick and lustrous with the life and light of the Blessed 
Spirit who first indited it. That same Spirit still dwells 
in the Church and in each believer; and by all the means 
which nature and grace provide for us, He makes the true 
meaning of the word He wrote clear to the Church and to 
each true heart. And so shall it be to the end of time. 

All this is, of course, denied by that avowed Infidelity 
which rejects Eevelation. But there is a subtler unbelief, 
which, on this point of Inspiration, professes and denies in 
the same breath. It claims its place among the phases of 
belief; but we have seen how the two theories already 
noticed cover all the ground short of Infidelity. Both these 

* 1 Cor. ii. 4, 13 ; Heb. iii. 7, 13, 15 ; Eph. iv. 8, 9. 
f St. Matthew xxii. 31, 32; and 43-45; and St. John x. 34, 35. 
t Acts ii. 34; Rom. iii. 10-18; Heb. ii. 8, 12, 27, &c. See Gaussen's The- 
opneusty, ch. vi. sec. 5. 



K E R F 0 0 T. 



£47 



acknowledge the fact of supernatural Inspiration. The 
former of them confines it to some parts of the Bible, while 
the latter extends it far and wide beyond the Bible and the 
Church, into all kinds of religion, and, it would almost 
seem, into all departments of human knowledge. The 
philosophy next to be examined lies beyond these theories ; 
though in many points it is not unlike the latter of them, 
the chief difference being that it more boldly and con- 
sistently advances to the legitimate consequences of its own 
principles, and denies that there is or can be anything 
supernatural in Inspiration. 

This subtle unbelief — this rationalistic philosophy* of 
Inspiration, though a favourite and prevalent form of Infi- 
delity just now, is really but an old error revived.^ It 
doubts not (it says) that the Sacred Writers were inspired ; 
but " So," it adds, " many men besides have been ; that in 
truth all men are so in a measure." Such theorists accept 
and extol, and misuse that right philosophy of man's nature 
which attributes to his spirit a higher faculty than merely 
that intellectual power which skilfully constructs a com- 
plicated machine, solves an abstruse problem in exact 
science, or comprehends a fact with its proofs and conse- 
quences. Man has within him (they rightly say) a power 
to conceive and to accept truths, that need and admit no 
demonstration — the great first principles of truths of every 
kind. Their abuse of this true philosophy is, that they 
make this spiritual facidty within, and not the voice or teach- 
ing of God's Spirit from without, the source of Inspiration. 
Keligious Truth (they say) can address itself only to the 
" Intuitional Consciousness," not to that logical understand- 
ing which can take cognisance of a fact, or hear enunciated 

* For a full exposition and able defence of it, see MorelPs "Philosophy of 
Religion," ch. vi. 

t See Gaussen's Theop. ch. v. sec. 2, XLIV. 



248 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY S CHIT TERES. 

from without a law of duty, or a principle of truth, and 
the reasons and applications of both. A Revelation can- 
not embrace objective truth, nor any instruction, nor any 
proofs by argument. " Inspired Logic" (to use their own 
term) is an absurdity. Thus, the only inspiration is, that 
God's Spirit awakens, purifies, and elevates some men's 
" intuitional consciousness," so that they can achieve in a 
very high degree, what all men do in some degree, and what 
all holy and thinking men do in a good degree — they see 
truth, for they see God. Inspiration is an extraordinary 
elevation and energy of man's natural powers, specially 
aroused by God's Spirit. There is nothing supernatural in 
the influence or the result, nor can there be any supernatural 
indication of the fact to others not specially inspired. There 
is nothing generically different between the inspiration of a 
prophet or an apostle, and that of the man who may be 
sunk almost to the level of the brute.* Hence, even when 
the specially inspired person speaks or writes, his can be only 
a human and fallible utterance of the more or less inspired 
conceptions of his intuitions. How much of Divine Truth 
there was in those conceptions originally, how far his sins 
blot or his words distort them, I can only guess according 
to their agreement or disagreement with my own intuitions. 

Therefore " Scripture" — that is, a tvriting, a book — 
can never be in any sense inspired. It is, at best, an 
authentic, human record of facts of history, and of the 
spoken lessons of men supposed to be more or less specially 
awakened to see truth : or some of their letters, penned by 
chance and as occasion suggested, and worthy of much 
regard as valuable relics of wise men, of whom we think 

* Hence those who boldly and consistently pursue the theory to its legiti- 
mate results, regard and speak of our Blessed Lord as specially Divine, only 
because pre-eminent among holy and wise men, in that excellence of which all 
good men partake. 



KERFOOT. 



249 



it probable that more than in most of their fellows, God 
awakened their natural power to see truth. 

But no voice or pen of man ever transmitted from with- 
out to me any indubitable, explicit word of God. What 
men more prophetic — more inspired, perhaps, than I, have 
said or written, may help to elevate my intuitions towards 
the high level of theirs ; but there can be no such things 
as creeds, out of the Bible or in the Bible. Doctrines are 
statements of facts, which I am to credit if my own intui- 
tions conceive or perceive them to be true ; but no testimony 
nor argument is to convince me. So with all parts of reli- 
gious truth or duty. Inspiration is entirely subjective ; its 
germ exists in every man ; and there is no external revela- 
tion from God. There cannot, according to the laws of my 
nature, any voice of God come to me from without ; and all 
that men the most fully inspired can do for me, is to speak 
and write their ideas of the Divine and True, as they best 
can — being only men, whose utterance is unassisted, un- 
guided from on high. 

Hence Inspiration is a hind of genius. Man's intuitions, 
not God's communications, are the beginnings of religious 
as of all other truths. Any man might be thus specially 
inspired were his moral nature duly elevated ; and he might 
be a prophet too, if his circumstances were such as to call 
forth the truth from within him : that is, Inspiration is, 
after all, only genius turned God-ward. Poetry, philosophy, 
science, and art are of the same parentage as what we call 
Revelation. Whatever their differences, they do not differ 
in their origin and nature. 

Now this is, I believe, a fair statement of this — not new 
— but resuscitated philosophy of Inspiration in its most 
favourable form. That it always sinks rapidly and surely 
into the most utter unbelief, is itself a strong proof of 

32 



250 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 



its falsity. But to consider it in this least objectionable 
form : — 

All error has some truth to begin with. So in this case, 
the philosophy of man's nature is, as has been already con- 
ceded — on the whole, the right one. The evil begins in 
the erroneous application of that philosophy to religion. 
For we, too, believe that to man's spirit are directly 
addressed many of the high truths of Revelation ; that he 
must conceive and believe much that he cannot explain or 
comprehend ; that moral purity clears the spiritual vision ; 
that nothing really repugnant to a man's spirit can be 
believed by him ; that practical, saving religion is a holy 
life within, and not merely a sound creed or code of laws 
without; and that all men have naturally a capacity to see 
religious truth when made really present to them. 

The error is in making this to be the whole history of 
religious Truths and of Revelation. Clearly it is not so. 

I. For, first, this philosophy is not so applied to the 
reception of any of the other kinds of truth, which yet 
embrace many axioms, and present many ultimate con- 
ceptions, which our spiritual reason must accept as self- 
evident, but which are yet taught from without before they 
are, or in most men can be conceived or realized within. 
And, then, arguments or calculations prove truths, or indis- 
putable testimony proves facts, which we must therefore 
believe, though they be truths or facts quite beyond the 
comprehension of the mere understanding. Other truth 
comes to us in various ways from without, addressing itself 
to all the powers of our intellectual and spiritual nature ; 
and is received by them all. Why cannot religious truth 
come as does every other kind of truth ? To our spiritual 
intuitions, and not less, to our logical understandings? And 
from without, by external teaching ? Wherein do the truths 



KERFOOT. 



251 



of religion differ from other truths, that they alone are 
confined to this mode of access — my intuitions of the true ? 

II. And, why cannot God's Spirit present truths to a 
man's spirit, as one man's spirit presents them to another — 
objectively? He needs not our organs of communication, 
which though helps, and so, too, proofs of our infirmity, would 
be hindrances to higher spirits? Surely we can receive 
truths externally, and God can so offer them : and the Sacred 
History proves that He did so present truths at times — if 
that history be not a mere fiction. 

And, if He could present in words, expressed and defined, 
any truth to any men, why could he not through such men 
convey His truth in like definite and permanent form? 
Why should luorcls ever be able to express His truth accu- 
rately and effectually, and then, of necessity, cease to do so 
when perpetuated among men ? 

And, lastly, why cannot God — why should He not in 
religion, man's highest concern, use the art of written lan- 
guage, which He gave as He gave all good things, and by 
which He conveys to us much that is full of temporal profit 
to us ? — There is, therefore, no law of our nature, no prin- 
ciple of sound philosophy, nor even any probable presump- 
tion against the true old theory of Inspiration. All the 
other w T ay. 

III. Nay, more. This whole idea of religion — as in its 
essence merely an emotional principle of religious life, 
entering man only by the avenue of his intuitions — is most 
unphilosophical as well as contrary to the else universal 
conception of religion."* For religion, true or false, enters 
man by every avenue of his nature. Be his innate capa- 
cities what they may, they are called into action, in this as 
in all things else, by what comes to the man from loithout. 

* See M'Cosh's "Method of Divine Government," bk. 4, eh. ii. sec. 4 (note). 



252 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

Self-evident truths, or those proven by testimony or by 
arguments, come to him claiming the sanction and accept- 
ance of his Spiritual Reason. Facts and truths, with their 
testimony, present themselves to his understanding for his 
investigation and study. Commands of duty appeal to his 
conscience. Love and its heavenly laws stir up his affec- 
tions towards God and man ; and authority bends his unruly 
will. From the first, religion comes in all of its own fulness 
and variety, and demands the exercise of every endowment 
of man. And it comes from without to conjoin its external 
testimony from history as to its origin, miraculous proofs, 
and wide acceptance, with the internal testimony of our 
own spirits to its Divinity. . 

IV. For though our inborn convictions of the being of 
God, of the reality of right, of our own immortality and 
the like truths, might be said to be awakened, not pro- 
duced, by what we hear or read, still how could we know 
that these ideas are not fancies ? All of them have been 
pronounced such by one or other of the doctors of this 
philosophy. Every elemental truth of natural religion 
has, in its turn, been held and denied, often by the same 
man. And yet such a man will pronounce these successive 
bubbles of the moment to be solid orbs of abiding truth ; 
and he will seem to believe them, too, to be such for the 
hour, till the restlessness of an unbelieving heart has 
invented some new delusion. Can the truth of God be 
thus unreal and changing, thus undefined and unattested ? 

V. Besides, such truths are but a small part of religion. 
They are not all of what a man needs to believe; and 
they tell us nothing of what we are to do. Facts of God's 
nature, and of our own nature, and of the future world, 
which cannot possibly lie slumbering in our intuitions, 
must be made known, and therefore must come from with- 
out, taught and defined and attested. So, too, must the 



KERFOOT. 



253 



rules of duty; the laws which form the very basis of 
society and its order, of the family and its love ; while 
every religious truth, by any possibility to be called intui- 
tional, must perish from among men, unless developed and 
upheld by truths and commands which have no claim to 
the title of self-evident and necessary truths. 

VI. And why not believe in " Inspired Logic ?" to use 
the very phrase of one chief cavil of this false philosophy. 
Did not our blessed Lord Himself use "inspired logic/' 
when He gave careful explanations of the moral law ?* or 
offered argumentative proofs of some of His doctrines ?f 
or showed the reasons and limits of a positive institution ?J 
or confounded objections to Himself and His claims ?§ 

And it is not only reasonable but necessary that a Reve- 
lation should involve the inspiration of the logical faculties. 
A great truth might be declared on God's authority mani- 
fested by external proofs. But such is the nature of the 
human mind that a bare proposition of a truth is not 
enough. The true idea can gain form and life within the 
mind only from illustration and argument. Would not 
then the Divine Spirit teach in the only way which can be 
effectual? the only way in which a human disciple can 
be indoctrinated ? by explanations and proofs guarded from 
all error? 

And are not some, at least, of the relations of deep truths 
to each other necessary to a correct apprehension of those 
truths ? Cannot the Divine Spirit lead man's spirit to see 
these relations and reasons without violating any law of 
man's nature, just as well as one man may guide another 

* e. g. Marriage, &c, St. Mark, x. 2-12 ; Duty to our neighbour, St. Luke, 
x. 25-37 ; Love, forgiveness, &c, St. Luke, vi. 27-38. 
f e. g. Life and resurrection, St. Matthew, xxii. 31-32. 
+ St. Matt. xii. 1-8 and 10-13. 
I St. Matt. xxii. 41-46 ; St. Mark ii. 6-12. 



254 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

in any demonstration in Geometry, or any argument in 
Philosophy ? Where, then, is the absurdity in the belief 
that He, to whom all truths are self-evident and necessary, 
did not only reveal to Paul truths before unknown, but did 
also lead that Inspired Philosopher to see and explain the 
hidden relations and reasons of those truths, so that man's 
intellectual and moral nature might not be starved on the 
dry husks of bald propositions, but be nourished by a quick- 
ening faith unto life, by means of the truth, so proven and 
illustrated as to become real and nutritious food to his 
spirit ? 

VII. Moreover, we can at once see that any such phi- 
losophy, confining inspiration to man's intuitions, is utterly 
inconsistent with the facts of our Sacred History. Not 
only angelic messengers and audible voices making revela- 
tions to men, but every positive institution, like the Sab- 
bath, and every sacramental or ceremonial ordinance, prove 
that Eevelation and Inspiration go beyond the province of 
mere intuitions. Prophecies of the future certainly can be 
in no sense among necessary truths. One prophecy, then, 
fully proven, would overthrow this whole scheme of Inspi- 
ration; while this last, if true, must blot out every pro- 
phecy by denying its possibility. Still more ; the prophets 
did not always* as, surely on the true idea of Inspiration, 
they need not comprehend all of their own messages as to 
future events ; a fact clearly inconsistent with the theory 
that Inspiration is only our consciousness fully awakened 
to the truth. And so far from moral purity, which is, 
doubtless, essential to the clearness of our religious intui- 
tions, being always an essential requisite to Inspiration, 
we read that bad meirj- were used by the Spirit to utter 
the truth, which they loved even less than they understood 

* 1 Peter i. 10, 11 ; and Bp. Horsley's Sermon XVIII. pp. 55, 62. 
f Viz., Balaam, Saul, and Caiaphas. 



K E R F 0 0 T. 



255 



it. The Bible must be rejected in spite of all its testimony, 
or this scheme of Inspiration fails, because utterly incon- 
sistent with the facts of the History, as it is equally incon- 
sistent with any true idea of Keligion and of the laws of 
our whole nature. 

We, therefore, receive the whole Bible as inspired of 
God. History, Doctrine, Precept, and Prophecy are all 
His, and given in His words. As tie spoke, so did He 
write, by men. What He wrote He has preserved essen- 
tially unchanged through all ages, by the care of His 
Church. The Spirit, who wrote the Word, has ever dwelt 
in the Church, and ever dwells in each believer, to give to 
the Holy Scripture its true meaning in all things essential 
to salvation. This is the law of God's spiritual kingdom ; 
the end of His system of spiritual teaching. And, despite 
all the seeming exceptions, all the perplexities of the 
honest, and all the cavils of the unbelieving, this law and 
end are even now receiving their due accomplishment, in 
substance and before our eyes, as regularly and effectually 
as are any of those laws of physical nature on which the 
life of man chiefly depends for its sustentation and comfort. 
The Holy Spirit works constantly towards this end. He 
preserves the Truth as a living reality, so that whosoever 
will, may find it ready to his hand, and take it into his 
heart and live by it. 

Such, I believe, is the true old doctrine of Inspiration,* 
as, in spite of all unbelief, Christians have held it from the 
first, and will still cherish it to the end of time. 

How holy does it make God's Word ! How does it place 
that word on the throne of Judgment, forbidding anything 
else to claim a place by its side ! The truth ascertained 

* See Westcott's "Gospel Harmony," Appendix B.. "Ante-Nicene Doct. of 
Insp.," pp. 126-225 ; and, for later testimony, that of Augustine quoted by 
Hooker, B. II. 4, 7. 



256 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

to be primitive, and the humble, hallowed learning of our 
own age, help us to understand God's word ; but nothing 
may be added or subtracted or changed. The voice that 
would do either is an impious voice. The man, the nation, 
or the church that would do either, must perish. Our 
Church, brethren, is not such; and cannot be such, just 
because she realizes the awfulness of this Inspiration of 
the written word. She has, indeed, with regard to that 
word, her office — and she shrinks not from it — as the 
authorized guide and teacher, to whose lessons we are to 
listen reverentially and thankfully, as she leads us to see 
what God's Spirit did mean when He spoke or wrote. She 
asserts, both in her theory in her practice, the necessity 
of belief in definite, objective truth, in order to salvation. 
But she neither claims nor desires, in this study, to enslave 
the intellect or the conscience ; for these, to be holy, must 
be free ; while, to be truly free, they must be gladly taught 
by the wisdom and guided by the authority which the 
kingdom of grace provides. 

Thus, then, is the whole Bible, opened wide and illumi- 
nated on each page by the ever-living, ever-present Spirit, 
the right of each Christian man and child. It is too holy, 
too precious, as the Inspired Word of God, to be withheld 
from any one. Not that it is to be given or used as an 
intellectual charm to banish evil. It must be used reve- 
rently, prayerfully, and under a deep sense of responsi- 
bility for such a gift and its due improvement. Then will 
the Holy Spirit, by His external guidance and internal 
light, bring the humble reader into a daily growing know- 
ledge of the truth; and so make his Bible, his God's 
Book, to be his, not only by way of duty and right and 
responsibility, but his, to shed the light of Heaven into his 
soul, its peace on his pathway, and its glorious hopes on 
his dying-bed. 



Analogies bttfoten §bVb W&nih anb lEcrrb. 

i / 

by rev. c. m. Sutler, d.d., 

RECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



33 



IX. 



ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WOKLD AND 

WORD. 

The kind of unbelief which prevails most in Christian 
communities, is a feeling and an impression, rather than a 
settled conviction and conclusion of the mind. It doubts 
rather than denies. It is not so much disbelief unbelief 
It rejects Christianity, but it does not hold to any definite 
or positive system. 

In many cases this feeling and impression are due to 
the diffused influence of Christianity itself. Some great 
moral and spiritual truth, seen to be true and thought to 
be unborn, by those who never, by their own reason, could 
have reached them, have been brought to bear against the 
peculiarities of the Christianity from which they had their 
being. Unbelief derives, unconsciously, from the Christian 
system, certain just and lofty views of the character of 
God, and then contends that they are in conflict with that 
system, and prove it to be false. By the diffused light of 
the sun, it discerns the sun itself to be behind a cloud ; and 
then declares that instead of being a glorious orb of light, 
it is but a black and hideous mist. 

Now, how shall this feeling and impression best be met ? 
Shall we first show, by external evidence, that Christianity 
is from God ? That can be done. But shall we not more 
surely aid the doubting mind into belief, by showing that 

(259) 



•260 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 



its vague feelings and impressions are unfounded ? If it be 
made to see that it has been mistaken in the character of 
the alleged Revelation, it will with the more care and 
candour weigh the evidences which prove its truth. 

There is a vague impression that Christianity cannot be 
believed by our common reason, and approved by our com- 
mon conscience. It is supposed that the standards and 
tests in the human mind, as God made it, condemn this 
system. It is inferred, from language not intended to con- 
vey that idea, that before Christianity can be accepted as 
from God, our reason must be changed into a different kind 
of reason, that it may then believe what it now rejects. 

This is a mistaken impression. Our reason, as it is, is to 
act, to be convinced, to be satisfied, and to approve, before 
it accepts, Christianity. As in the case of all other systems 
and subjects, we are to inquire what it is, how it agrees 
with what we know, and what is its origin. 

The case is this. We know that our World, and our- 
selves, its inhabitants, are from God. He created, He sus- 
tains, He supervises, He governs this world and its inhabit- 
ants. It is those only who admit this fact with whom we 
argue. We have also a Bible, a revelation, an announced 
plan of procedure and of government, which professes to 
be from God. Is it from God? 

I. When we look at this known and this alleged work of 
God, we find that they seem as if they might have come 
from the same hand. We do not now say that we find 
some of the same things in both, but we say that we find 
in both the same mind and heart, the same hand, the same 
character, the same kind of persons, the same ways of 
working. The presumption then is, that they were both 
the work of the same being. 

We look then, at first, into these two departments of 
Nature and of Redemption ; not to notice the identity or 



BUTLER. 



£61 



similarity of what we find in them, but to see if the same 
methods of arrangement and of working prevail in both. 

1. We find that Nature and Christianity convey knowledge 
in the same way. They both proclaim 'practical facts, with- 
out explaining the inner being, the reason, and the mode 
of them. Nature gives us air, but does not tell us of what 
it is composed, and upon which of its elements our life de- 
pends. She gives us water, but allows us to drink and be 
invigorated without any knowledge of its constituent ele- 
ments. She gives us light, without informing us that in 
every ray lie latent the glories of the rainbow. In the 
same manner, Christianity teaches us her salutary and sav- 
ing facts. Everything which a moral and immortal being 
needs to know for his welfare, she proclaims. Our account- 
ability, our helplessness, our lost estate, our resurrection, our 
immortality, our redemption ; the providence of God ; the 
grace and salvation of the Saviour; Judgment, Heaven, and 
Hell; these facts are fully and unequivocally announced. 
But no pains is taken to show their harmony, or to disclose 
the philosophy which lies beneath them. It proclaims neces- 
sary and saving facts, as they are proclaimed by Nature. It 
stops where Nature stops. When, in both departments, we 
proceed to inquire into the inner being, the mode, the reason, 
and the final end of the great facts announced, we find our- 
selves, in both alike, surrounded on every hand by im- 
penetrable mysteries. We can go some steps back into 
second causes. We may decompose some complex facts. 
We may see some reasons this side of the ultimate reason. 
But the last step, the last analysis, the last reason, the 
ultimate why and how, we cannot detect and comprehend. 
However far on the light of our single taper, or our tapers 
grouped, we throw our straining vision, there is beyond its 
reach a world of darkness. But in both it is not with that 
which lies in the darkness, that we are at present, and 



£62 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 

personally, concerned. That which lies in light, which our 
eyes can see and our hands handle, is that by which we 
are to live. Surely we trace the same mind and hand in 
these two worlds of Nature and Redemption. 

2. We find that the laws which prevail in Nature and 
Christianity ivork in the same ivay, and with the same 
thoroughness and perfection. There are certain laws which 
extend through all nature, and control alike particles of 
matter too minute to be discerned and masses of matter 
too vast to be conceived. The law of gravitation holds all 
worlds together, and acts alike on all masses and on every 
atom. The minutest particle which floats on the air is 
obedient to it in all its motions. All its mazy dancings to 
and fro are made in as precise obedience to this law as are 
the majestic and measured motions of the 

" Planets and suns and adamantine spheres, 
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense/-' 

So does God's moral law, as revealed in Scripture, extend 
to all spiritual being. It holds all spirits in its grasp, and 
extends to all their thoughts, feelings, and desires. At the 
same time it reaches to every human heart, and to every 
thought and intent of every human heart. All spiritual 
natures, and all the life and action of all spirits, are subject 
to its sway. And so, likewise, God's providence, which is 
over all worlds, is in every part of every world. We see, 
then, the same principle of action prevail in both these 
departments of Nature and of Christianity. How can we 
doubt that both are conceived and executed by the same 
wonder-working mind and hand ? 

3. We find also that Nature and Christianity are alike 
systems of means. In Nature an end is not reached by a 
mere fiat of the Almighty, but by means y simple or com- 
plex, slow or quick of action. God does not speak a tree 



BUTLER. 263 

into being ; but, from a little seed, slowly and by various 
influences of sun and shower, He develops it into full per- 
fection. And so the kingdom of Heaven in the soul is 
like a grain of mustard seed: under the light of God's 
Spirit, and the clews of His grace, it grows gradually into 
completeness. Christianity is throughout, as Nature is, a 
system of means, on which results depend. In both we 
find the same principles, the same habits, if I may so 
speak, of arrangement and of procedure. How strong, 
then, is the presumption that they are both from the same 
great God ! 

These specimens of the argument may suffice to show, 
from the similar modes of working in both Nature and 
Christianity, that a high presumption arises, that the 
worker is in both the same. The object of the argu- 
ment thus far is to prove, not that there is similarity 
or identity in what is found in these two departments, but 
that certain general principles of procedure are traced alike 
in both. And now, if we find that Nature and the Bible 
coincide in their teachings, upon some important subjects, we 
shall have an additional and vastly strengthened presump- 
tion, that the author of the one is also the author of the 
other. 

II. It is found that there is nothing which Nature 
distinctly teaches man — or, perhaps, we should say, nothing 
which man learns from Nature — which is not taught, and 
that, too, with greater emphasis and clearness, in the book 
of God. Nay, the truths which Nature does but whisper, 
and which none but pure and earnest hearts can catch, are 
proclaimed in trumpet tones by this messenger of Heaven. 

When we speak of that knowledge of God and of duty, 
which may be acquired by man without revelation, we use 
vague words. Natural religion, as it is called, has no fixed 
creeds and articles. Allowing to natural religion not only 



£64 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 



what men have actually learned from Nature, but all that 
Nature actually teaches to the highest and purest reason, 
we shall find that all her teachings are confirmed by the 
book of God. 

1. Nature and the Bible coincide in their representations 
of the natural attributes of God. Both proclaim Him, 
" The King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, the only wise 
God." It is claimed by the students of Nature, that such 
are her teachings with regard to the great Creator of all 
things. By some it is denied that these conclusions could 
have been reached without the aid of the diffused, but 
unrecognised light of the Bible. But if we allow that 
Nature teaches, and man learns from her, all these truths, 
how magnificently are they proclaimed in Scripture ! How 
these truths, which are but whispered in Nature, so that 
many never hear them, are pealed forth, as with melodious 
thunders, in the word of God ! Nature and Revelation are 
the oracular Urim and Thummim upon the breastplate of 
Divinity — the one " truth " and the other " manifestation' — 
the one containing, and the other explaining, stupendous 
lessons concerning the Almighty and the Infinite. What 
man learns from the book of Nature concerning the natural 
attributes of God, he can best express in the language of 
the Bible, and he feels that he better understands, and is 
more sublimely moved by them, when he utters them in 
the rapt anthems of Isaiah, and the lofty and swelling 
ascriptions of St. John. 

2. If it be difficult to know how much natural religion 
teaches as to the natural attributes of God, it is still more 
difficult to define what she has taught in reference to the 
moral character of the Almighty ; and in reference to the 
duty of man. But we may boldly say that cdl that man 
has learned on these subjects in Nature, he icill find in the 
Bible. The obscure, vague words which Nature utters on 



BUTLER. 



265 



these great themes, are distinctly spoken in the Word of 
God. There is not a moral attribute of the Almighty, nor 
a moral duty falteringly put forth by Nature, which is not 
plainly announced in the New Testament. Natural religion 
declares that we know those things to be duties which are 
followed by good results, and add to the welfare and the 
happiness of man. On this ground it inculcates duty to 
parents, and obedience to the State. Now we fearlessly 
declare, that according to this rule, there is not a moral 
duty inculcated by Scripture, which natural religion does 
not sanction. " In fact," to use the language of another, 
" moral philosophy, and political economy, and the science 
of politics, the sciences which teach men the rules of well- 
being, whether as individuals or as communities, are, so far 
as they are sound, but experience and organized nature 
echoing back the teachings of Christianity. What principle 
of Christian ethics does Christianity now presume to call in 
question? What are the general principles of political 
economy, but an imperfect application to the intercourse 
of trading communities of those rules of good neighbour- 
hood, and of that spirit of kindness, which Christianity 
inculcates? What is the larger part of political science, 
but a laborious and imperfect mode of realizing those results 
in society, which would flow spontaneously from the uni- 
versal prevalence of Christian morals and of a Christian 
spirit? In regard to every cause that would lead to unhap- 
piness, Christianity has stood from the first, at the entrance 
of the paths, and uttered its warning cry."* Because, then, 
all of human duty which Nature teaches, the Bible teaches, 
and all that the Bible teaches, natural religion on its own 
principles must acknowledge to be true, we conclude, that 
their teachings on these great themes coincide. 

* Hopkins's Evidences of Christianity. 

34 



266 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND AV 0 R D. 

If, then we have reasoned rightly, two important truths 
— confirmed by a few arguments which might be expanded 
into a volume — are in our possession. We find that similar 
principles and modes of working prevail in Nature and in 
Providence, and that the teachings of both, in some most 
important particulars, coincide. Every reason is absent 
which would lead us to infer that they had different authors. 
Every reason is present, which would lead us to conclude 
that their author was the same. 

III. And now we are prepared to advance a step further 
in the argument, and to show that what is taught by 
Christianity, which is additional to, above, and beyond the 
teachings of nature, is analogous in itself, and in its princi- 
ples, to what is found in Nature. We see the same Worker 
carrying the same kind of work, and on the same principles, 
further. We see the same Governor, applying and carrying 
out his laws in new fields. So we infer from finding that 
all which Christianity reveals is analogous to the constitu- 
tion and the course of Nature. On this point, as upon the 
other, we can but indicate what the argument is, and give 
a few specimens of the mode in which it may be conducted. 

The distinctive principles of the Bible are consonant 
with the dictates of enlightened reason ; are such as God 
adopts in Nature and in Providence ; such as man habitu- 
ally recognises as just, wise, and good. 

1. The doctrine of a future state is prominent in the Bible. 
Why should it seem incredible that the body, dissolved in 
dust, should again be joined by the soul in a higher and 
nobler state of being ? Nature is full of kindred processes 
and changes. The little seed cast into the ground, mould- 
ers ; and lo ! in a few years, the strong oak, born from it, 
throws out its giant arms, and wrestles with the whirlwind. 
An unsightly little worm dries up and dies to-day ; and to- 
morrow, out of it, the bright-winged butterfly comes and 



BUTLER. 



267 



soars. How improbable, at the first view, would such a 
change appear ! It is, for anything we know, quite as 
wonderful as the death and resurrection of the body. In 
the present life, the difference between a human being at 
one period and another, may be as great as that between 
his life on earth and his resurrection-life. How different 
is the infant from the man ! How vastly different the 
unborn child and the same being ripe in years and in cul- 
ture ! We are the unborn children of immortality in the 
womb of time. Who shall say, with such changes in this 
world before his eyes, that a future state of a more 
advanced life, is either impossible or improbable ? If it is 
proclaimed by Revelation, then in order to receive it, we 
need accept no new principle, but one which Nature and 
Providence have always and uniformly proclaimed. 

2. That this future state is one of rewards and punishments, 
is also a peculiar doctrine of the Bible. It is one which 
commends itself to our inborn sense of justice, and har- 
monizes with God's actual dealings in the present world. 
Notwithstanding the moral disorders of the world, the 
often apparent or real prosperity of the wicked, and the 
sufferings of the innocent, men do trace, even here, a 
righteous moral government. After the transient happi- 
ness of the vile and wicked, we often see justice overtake 
them. We see, also, as a general law, that the virtuous 
prosper and the wicked are punished. Shall not the prin- 
ciple then which prevails here, and which our moral judg- 
ment sanctions, prevail also beyond the tomb? If the 
vicious die before retribution meets them here, shall we 
not expect that it will seize them hereafter ? If the virtu- 
ous die in the midst of suffering and by injustice, shall not 
their rewards greet and bless them in the other world ? 
If the completion of this recognised scheme of rewards 
and punishments is arrested on earth, shall it not be 



266 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 



If, then we have reasoned rightly, two important truths 
— confirmed by a few arguments which might be expanded 
into a volume — are in our possession. We find that similar 
principles and modes of working prevail in Nature and in 
Providence, and that the teachings of both, in some most 
important particulars, coincide. Every reason is absent 
which would lead us to infer that they had different authors. 
Every reason is present, which would lead us to conclude 
that their author was the same. 

III. And now we are prepared to advance a step further 
in the argument, and to show that what is taught by 
Christianity, which is additional to, above, and beyond the 
teachings of nature, is analogous in itself, and in its princi- 
ples, to what is found in Nature. We see the same Worker 
carrying the same kind of work, and on the same principles, 
further. We see the same Governor, applying and carrying 
out his laws in new fields. So we infer from finding that 
all which Christianity reveals is analogous to the constitu- 
tion and the course of Nature. On this point, as upon the 
other, we can but indicate what the argument is, and give 
a few specimens of the mode in which it may be conducted. 

The distinctive principles of the Bible are consonant 
with the dictates of enlightened reason ; are such as God 
adopts in Nature and in Providence ; such as man habitu- 
ally recognises as just, wise, and good. 

1. The doctrine of a future state is prominent in the Bible. 
Why should it seem incredible that the body, dissolved in 
dust, should again be joined by the soul in a higher and 
nobler state of being ? Nature is full of kindred processes 
and changes. The little seed cast into the ground, mould- 
ers ; and lo ! in a few years, the strong oak, born from it, 
throws out its giant arms, and wrestles with the whirlwind. 
An unsightly little worm dries up and dies to-day ; and to- 
morrow, out of it, the bright-winged butterfly comes and 



BUTLER. 



267 



soars. How improbable, at the first view, would such a 
change appear ! It is, for anything we know, quite as 
wonderful as the death and resurrection of the body. In 
the present life, the difference between a human being at 
one period and another, may be as great as that between 
his life on earth and his resurrection-life. How different 
is the infant from the man ! How vastly different the 
unborn child and the same being ripe in years and in cul- 
ture ! We are the unborn children of immortality in the 
womb of time. "Who shall say, with such changes in this 
world before his eyes, that a future state of a more 
advanced life, is either impossible or improbable ? If it is 
proclaimed by Revelation, then in order to receive it, we 
need accept no new principle, but one which Nature and 
Providence have always and uniformly proclaimed. 

2. That this future state is one of leewards and punishments, 
is also a jpecidiar doctrine of the Bible. It is one which 
commends itself to our inborn sense of justice, and har- 
monizes with God's actual dealings in the present world. 
Notwithstanding the moral disorders of the world, the 
often apparent or real prosperity of the wicked, and the 
sufferings of the innocent, men do trace, even here, a 
righteous moral government. After the transient happi- 
ness of the vile and wicked, we often see justice overtake 
them. We see, also, as a general law, that the virtuous 
prosper and the wicked are punished. Shall not the prin- 
ciple then which prevails here, and which our moral judg- 
ment sanctions, prevail also beyond the tomb? If the 
vicious die before retribution meets them here, shall we 
not expect that it will seize them hereafter ? If the virtu- 
ous die in the midst of suffering and by injustice, shall not 
their rewards greet and bless them in the other world ? 
If the completion of this recognised scheme of rewards 
and punishments is arrested on earth, shall it not be 



268 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 

realized in another state of being ? Surely this is what 
we should be led to expect ! And how should the human 
heart leap with joy to hiow, what Nature could only teach 
us to surmise and to desire ! How comforting is the reflec- 
tion, in a world where injustice so often rides dominant 
and insulting over prostrate innocence, that in another 
world every inequality shall be removed ! The temple of 
justice shall rise in complete beauty and proportion on the 
plains of heaven. Here w r e see its unfinished materials 
thrown together in a seemingly unmeaning and unmanage- 
able confusion. Some of its turret-tops lie pressed under 
its intended foundation-stones; and the fine carvings of 
the architrave lie beneath the columns they were fashioned 
to surmount. Yet may a studious and instructed eye dis- 
cerns its general plan, and in the finish and beauty of some 
of its parts, scattered amid shapeless masses, we may form 
some idea of its grandeur and glory when it shall be com- 
plete. All these materials, however rude and heterogene- 
ous some of them may appear, shall be made to minister to 
the strength, harmony, and grace of the majestic edifice ; 
and on its front holiness shall be inscribed ; and under its 
dome the redeemed children of God shall for ever sing, 
"Just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints !" 

But these two doctrines of a future state of rewards and 
punishments have been surmised at times by reason. Other 
still more distinctive and exclusive doctrines, wdiich natural 
religion never reached, remain. 

3. It is a peculiar and distinctive doctrine of the Bible, 
that a solitary evil act — an act of disobedience to God on 
the part of our first parents — was the beginning of a long 
train of wretchedness which has come upon the world. 
That such sad and long-continued consequences should flow 
from a single act, we shall see to be in harmony with our 
constant experience, and necessary to the well-being and 



BUTLER. 



269 



existence of society. The consequences of guilt, on the 
part of a parent, pass over and rest upon his children. 
The intemperate man not only ruins himself, but frequently 
blights the health and happiness and prospects of his chil- 
dren. By a single act of treason, many titled persons, in 
other countries, have stripped themselves, and their chil- 
dren through all generations, of their privileges and 
honours. The monarch who a few years since sat on the 
throne of France, by a single act deprived not only him- 
self, but his heir, and, it may be, his descendants through 
all time, of whatever glory there is in regal state. By a 
single stroke of his pen, made in a moment, the forger or 
defaulter brings upon himself bitter consequences for all 
his life, and, it may be, upon all his family, all their lives 
long. No one vindicates the robber, the murderer, or any 
other culprit, on the ground that he committed his crime 
quickly, in an instant. We look to his evil intent, and to 
the consequences of his crime ; and the murderer by slow 
poison, and the dealer of death by a single blow, have the 
same punishment. Such punishment is necessary for the 
preservation of society and of moral government. Now it 
may be, that the evil consequences which flowed from the 
disobedience of Adam are not greater, when viewed in 
reference to the vastness of God's government, the eternity 
of His duration, than are the consequences which flow from 
an act of guilt against human society, viewed in reference 
to its duration and extent. If it be just that such conse- 
quences should follow crime against human government, 
it is just that a proportioned retribution should follow dis- 
loyalty to the government of God. If a life-long penalty 
is not too great for human justice, a life-long penalty is not 
too great for Divine justice, though that lifetime be eternity. 
By such awful and far-reaching consequences all God's 
intelligent creatures would be warned, with a solemnity 



£70 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 

which would be likely to insure their everlasting loyalty, 
that God's laws must be maintained inviolate ! 

4. Another distinctive doctrine of the Gospel is Redemp- 
tion. By Adam's fall, all mankind having become de- 
praved, restoration and salvation have been effected by the 
agency of a Mediator. And this is in harmony with our 
constant experience. Our chief blessings come to us from 
God through provided media. In every period of our being 
it is so. It was through the pains, cares, and watchings 
of a tender mother that our infancy was guarded. If it be 
God's appointment that we are ushered into this world 
and prepared for its duties and enjoyments through the 
sufferings and love of another, it is in harmony with this 
arrangement that we should be prepared for another world 
by the pains and love of a Redeemer. Knowledge comes 
through others. Food reaches us through others. All 
God's best gifts come to us through some mediate agency. 
And if it be said that the doctrine of Redemption by Jesus 
Christ has this peculiarity of atonement and substitution, 
still, it may be shown, that every instance of substituted 
sufferings, on the part of a friend, parent, or public bene- 
factor, is in accordance with this feature of the Divine 
arrangement. Should the cloud of war frown on our 
coasts and darken our valleys, and our homes be filled with 
fear and gloom, then, through you, patriot citizens, who 
would rush to the rescue — by the pouring out of your 
blood — a saved and grateful people would smile again in 
peace and safety ! By mediation, by atonement, by substi- 
tution, God acts in the kingdom of Grace, as he does in the 
kingdom of Nature. 

5. To other doctrines, still more remote from man's un- 
aided discover}^ the same remarks might be applied. That 
arrangement by which some nations are called to the know- 
ledge of Revelation and some are not, some individuals 



BUTLER. 



271 



saved and some lost ; the doctrine of the influence of the 
Holy Spirit, and other peculiar truths, which go beyond 
natural religion, are yet on the same line with it, and, 
when revealed, can be seen by reason to be in analogy 
with Nature, though they could never, by reason, have been 
discovered. 

We find, then, that in these two departments, of Nature 
and of Christianity, the same principles of procedure 
prevail ; that many of their teachings coincide ; that 
Christianity, when it goes beyond Nature, proceeds in the 
same line, and conforms to her's its arrangements. Its hard 
words are made up of Nature's easy syllables. Its great 
conclusions result from nature's simple and admitted pre- 
mises. In view of these resemblances, the probability that 
they are the work of the same great heart and mind and 
hand rises almost to demonstration. 

IV. But there is still another step to this argument 
which leads the candid mind into a conviction that Christi- 
anity is from God : a conviction so strong that it scarcely 
feels the need of external evidence. God's Word throws 
vast light on God's World. It clears up many obscuri- 
ties. It explains many difficulties. It enables natural 
religion to reach and rest in her conclusions, with the 
more assured conviction, because it removes objections 
which she admitted and could not obviate. By placing the 
case more fully before natural religion, disclosing the wider 
connexions and the remoter reasons of many facts, it 
shows her how she can receive, with assured certainty, 
what she before held with faltering faith. It shows her 
that though some of the main conclusions which she has 
reached are just and true, yet with only the knowledge, 
and on the principles, in her possession, she must hold them 
in connexion with such powerful difficulties and objections, 
as almost shake them from her grasp. 



272 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 



1. Natural religion proclaims, as an article of her faith, 
that God is a just and righteous Governor. Noticing how 
evil and suffering follow the violation of natural and moral 
law r s, how retribution dogs the footsteps of the transgressor, 
she discerns, amid all the confusions of the w r orld, a 
righteous moral administration, and concludes, " Verily 
there is a reward for the righteous ; doubtless there is a 
God that judgeth the earth." But observe how often this 
conviction must shake in the mind of the Natural Reli- 
gionist, when it has no other reasons to keep it firm than 
those which Nature furnishes. He discerns righteousness 
to be God's rule. But whenever — and how often, in this 
evil world, does this occur! — he observes the innocent 
ultimately perish, and the vicious ultimately triumph ; he 
sees an inexplicable exception to the rule ! What shall he 
do with the exception ? Perfect Justice, Divine J ustice, 
should have no exceptions. It should be uniform, uni- 
versal, irresistible in its operation. A Justice which some- 
times slumbers, though it more often w r akes, is imperfect 
Justice. Omitted Justice is inflicted w r rong. What shall 
he do with the exceptions ? If he adopts belief in future 
rewards and punishments — as some theories of natural 
religion do — then many of his difficulties vanish. He 
sees then that suffering innocence is finally vindicated and 
rewarded, and prosperous wrong cast down beneath burning 
retributions. But still a great difficulty remains. Why 
should innocence, though ultimately vindicated and re- 
warded, suffer at all ? How is it to be reconciled to God's 
Justice that they who have done no sin should suffer much 
evil? On this difficulty reason throws no ray of light! 
It is compelled to build up and keep up the conviction of 
God's perfect Justice, with this flaw, this gap in the founda- 
tions. What wonder that when struck by the storms of. 
passion, temptation, and despair, it falls, and crushes all 



BUTLER. 



273 



belief, and leaves the soul broken and bleeding under its 
ruins ? 

But observe here how God's Word affords the light by 
which alone God's World can be read and comprehended. 
It furnishes new facts which explain old facts, which are 
otherwise inexplicable. It distinctly announces the retri- 
bution which reason vaguely guesses. In the life and im- 
mortality which it brings to light, it affords a field on which 
all inequalities shall be adjusted. It reveals a history 
which throws much light on the mystery of suffering. It 
tells the story of the fall. It proves that man was not 
created with the poor prone nature under which he now 
stoops and staggers, but that he inherits it, by a law which 
runs through all God's works, from his fallen first father. 
It shows that there are no strictly innocent human beings. 
It proves that all men, having sinned, deserve, if not the 
particular evil which they suffer, yet an equal evil, as the 
just meed of their transgressions. It displays the sweet 
uses of adversity. It exhibits God's love in the discipline 
of pain. It displays the All-wise " from seeming evil still 
educing good." It shows that only infants are perfectly 
innocent, and that they suffer under a general uniform law, 
which God cannot abrogate, and that their sufferings, as 
such, are temporary, and are followed by joys that make 
them seem less than nothing. How great, without these 
explanations, are the difficulties of natural religion ! How 
are they diminished by Christianity ! How slight are those 
which remain ! How rapidly are they dissolving in the 
light over which they float ! How like the little shreds of 
cloud over the pearly sky of dawn, do they catch radiance 
from the orb which is still below time's horizon, and in 
whose rising light they shall disappear! Surely if Christi- 
anity so often coincides with Nature, is always in analogy 
35 



274 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 



with Nature, and explains Nature, it must be from the hand 
of Nature's God ! 

2. Natural Religion proclaims the goodness of the Al- 
mighty. Benevolence is seen to be the design and rule ; 
suffering and evil the contravention of the design, and the 
exception to, the rule. We grant that the Natural Re- 
ligionist, by the exercise of right reason, can justly reach 
and rest in this conclusion. But on his principles and 
with his knowledge, upon this supposition of God's perfect 
benevolence, the existence of sin and suffering at all, must 
be inexplicable and confounding. Why any exception to 
the rule ? Why any contravention of the design ? From 
his position he must be led to inquire, whether God was not 
unable to make a perfect world ; or whether His nature is 
not capricious and imperfect, so that while He does good as 
a rule, He sometimes yields to impulse or neglect, and lets 
in evil ; or whether there may not be two Gods — the evil 
and the good ? He may see how, in many cases, evil is 
overruled for good ; but while this proves God's goodness 
in His dealings with it after it has come into the world, 
it does not destroy its nature as evil, and does not 
explain how God's goodness is reconcileable with its 
coming. Here, as in the case of God's Justice, and by the 
same history, and the same reasons, Christianity clears 
up the difficulties of Natural Religion. It shows how God 
did make a perfect world ; how man, in the perverse 
exercise of that free will, which was the perfection and 
glory of his nature, and necessary to a perfect world, in- 
troduced into the peaceful and happy work of perfect 
benevolence, sin, suffering, disorder, death. It shows God 
springing forward to meet and counterwork and educe from 
the evil — which He made every provision, consistent with 
His perfections, to exclude from the universe — all the good 
and all the happiness to His creatures, which infinite wis- 



BUTLER. 



275 



dom, love and power, could compass. Surely a system 
which explains the difficulties and supplies the deficiencies 
of Nature, must be from the God of Nature. 

3. But the disorder of the material world, and the suffer- 
ings of God's innocent animate creation, are a still greater 
difficulty in view of the perfect power, wisdom, benevolence, 
and justice of the Almighty, than is the existence of moral 
evil and its attendant pains. That might possibly be ac- 
counted for by reason, on the ground of man's freedom. 
But that this material world should be in such disorder, 
and that creatures incapable of sin should suffer — how can 
reason give any solution to this dark enigma? It is 
Christianity alone that can shed upon this subject a ray of 
light. Christianity shows us Jww, if it does not show us 
why, it occurred. Nay, it shows us why, after man in the 
exercise of his perverse free will had fallen, the world 
which he inhabited, became also a fallen world, that it 
might be his fit abode. Matter was created in subordina- 
tion to the spiritual world, and adjusted to its nature and 
its wants. When man was perfect, his world was perfect. 
But it follows the fortunes, and reflects the features of man, 
for whom it was created. It " was made subject to vanity, 
not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it" to 
become a sharer of his woe. It fell with him. Its disorder 
reflected his disorder. Its suffering corresponded to his 
suffering. We see then the how, and the immediate and 
necessary, if not remote and ultimate why of this strange, 
and to reason, utterly inexplicable mystery. Nature, whose 
voices must be so discordant to the ear of reason, utters a 
confirming and consenting testimony to the ear of the 
believer in the Word of God. In the sunshine and the 
dew, in the beauty and bounty of the earth, in the happy 
life of its myriad creatures, the Natural Keligionist reads 
God's goodness, and is charmed and grateful. But when 



276 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 

he looks at wild wastes and raging seas, at the charged 
cloud and the sweeping tempest, at the volcano and the 
earthquake ; when he sees the sufferings, and hears the cry 
of God's helpless creatures, pursued by beasts of prey, or 
dying under the knife of man, then he is met by what 
seems a terrifying and confounding contradiction. But to 
the believer in Revelation, Earth is a solemn Teacher who 
does but repeat to him the great lessons of the Bible. It 
is a vast symbol of the world of souls, to which it is con- 
formed, and by which it is inhabited. The strife and gloom 
and elemental war and woe, which appear in the midst of 
beauty, harmony, and joy in Nature, do but correspond to 
the suffering, sin, and struggle in the mind of man, which 
are seen to blend and alternate with its beautiful affections, 
and its blameless joys. From every soft vale of beauty, 
and from every mountain-throne of power, and from every 
wild scene of elemental war, earth teaches us that our souls 
groan in a state of probation and of struggle ; that our joys 
ever nestle beneath toppling avalanches of woe ; that our 
good always dwells on a precipice, beneath which the inex- 
haustible and undermining spring of innate evil flows ; that 
ours is not a perfect and happy moral world, and that to 
become such it must undergo a new creation. 

Now, in view of these reasonings, if it appear that in 
this known World of God, and this alleged Word of God, 
we find the same methods and principles of proceeding; 
if many of their teachings coincide; if where the Word 
adds to the teachings of the World, it teaches truths that 
are analogous to hers ; and if the Word throw floods of 
light upon the dark places of the World, making its truths 
plainer, dissipating its obscurities, and explaining its diffi- 
culties, how can the conclusion be avoided that this Word 
must be from God ? How can we do otherwise than 
expect to find the evidences for its truth satisfying and 



BUTLER. 



277 



conclusive? The antecedent probability, the high pre- 
sumption, from the character merely of this Word of God, 
without reference to the presumption which rises from its 
history, is that it must be of God. 

1. Hence the power which Christianity possesses over 
the convictions of mankind. Rightly and fully presented, 
it vindicates by exhibiting its Divinity, even as the sun 
proves its light, by shining. Itself is its evidence. As 
Nature speaks of the God from whom it came, by the 
marks of God's work upon it, so does Christianity speak of 
God, its Author, to the minds that receive and the hearts 
that feel its truths. Let us not then doubt that in exhibit- 
ing Christianity in all its Divine fulness, we are exhibiting 
its evidences. Let it be preached, and some of its best 
proofs will not be wanting. 

2. Hence let not the humble believer who has received 
Christianity with an earnest faith, with an undoubting 
confidence, be shaken in that faith, because he has not 
studied and weighed its external evidences, and been con- 
vinced by them of its truth. Let him not be persuaded 
that his faith rests on no sure and reasonable foundations ; 
and is but blind credulity. The Bible has addressed to 
him the same arguments as Nature has, to prove to him 
that it is from God. God is seen in the Bible m more 
magnificent, moving, touching demonstrations than in the 
world. It was not by syllogisms, by histories, by proofs 
outside of itself, that Nature was seen to be from God. It 
was Nature's self that spoke to him of God. In the same 
manner has the Bible spoken. He need not be ashamed 
of his conviction, nor give it up, if he never have the 
power nor the opportunity to examine those external evi- 
dences which so abundantly prove its truth. 

3. Hence, too, the Christian must not allow himself to 
think or speak as if it were Christianity that was chiefly 



£78 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 



encumbered by inexplicable difficulties, and as if they did 
not attach to Natural Religion. The difficulties of Natu- 
ral Religion are the great and confounding difficulties. 
Reason, unaided by Revelation, has, in every system of 
Religion which she can construct, real difficulties, as dis- 
tinguished from the mysteries and obscurities which are 
found in Christianity. They are places in which we can see 
that there are inconsistencies, irreconcileablenesses, things 
which the reason cannot harmonize. But the difficulties 
of Christianity are places in which ive cannot see at all ; 
they are not in conflict with reason, but beyond reason. 
In the one system things which are in conflict lie in the 
light before us. We see their incongruity. In the other 
system certain things lie in the darkness which is beyond 
us, which we cannot see at all, but which we have good 
evidence shall, when the light of the eternal day shall be 
let in upon them, ravish us with their beauty and their 
inter-harmony, their sweet accord with all the systems of 
all God's worlds, and with all the principles of a perfect, 
holy, and benevolent administration. In the one system 
we stand in a temple which is unfinished ; whose plan we 
cannot trace; whose unbuttressed walls we fear will fall ; 
whose incongruous construction offends our eye, and excites 
our apprehensions of its stability ; but the whole of which 
we can see. In the other system our joyful worship is 
rendered and our peaceful rest enjoyed, in a grand, ordered, 
and completed temple, whose harmony charms our minds, 
and whose stability assures our hearts ; though beneath it, 
under its vaulted foundations, there are dark places, into 
which if we enter we cannot see ; but in which, if we could 
see, we should discern only majesty, stability, proportion, 
power ! There are shadows in the angles and niches, and 
under the crypts of the great Temple of Truth ; but it 



BUTLER. 



279 



stands in light, and the light streams within and cheers its 
happy worshippers. 

And now, my friend, fellow-traveller through time to 
eternity, what is your position in reference to these great 
truths? Have you, because of the difficulties of Christi- 
anity, turned away from it ? Do you reject the Bible as 
from God ? If we have reasoned well, the difficulties of 
reason are far greater without than with the Bible. And 
then think of your position — how lonely, how cheerless, 
how wrapped around w T ith inexorable mysteries ! There 
are, indeed, curtains of mystery before the Christian's eye ; 
but he sees angel hands putting them aside, and light from 
Heaven gleaming through ! But you are here on this 
isolated, darkened world, knowing only that there is a 
God, and that He made you, sustains you, and governs 
you. That He is perfectly good and holy you strive to 
feel, though you are often made to doubt. What He is, you 
cannot fully know ; you can but surmise and hope. But 
the wonder of wonders is, that He never speaks to you, 
that He leaves you to yourself in this dark world, that He 
never addresses a single word of teaching or encouragement 
to the poor weak creature whom He has made and cast out 
on a perilous world, to battle alone with sin, and, at last, 
to yield to the embrace of the grim and inevitable death. 
When, to the dumb surrounding space, or to the speechless 
stars, you send forth a cry of passionate inquiry, "Whence 
and why and what am I, and whither destined ? What is 
the power that made and keeps me ? What are His cha- 
racter, designs, and will ?" — there comes no reply. In vain 
do you speak to your own wondering soul. In vain do 
you speak to the dumb darkness. From the one you hear 
only questions, and from the other comes no reply. I 
should think this sense of loneliness and desertion would 
be unspeakably gloomy and oppressive to your soul. 



£80 ANALOGIES BETWEEN GOD'S WORLD AND WORD. 

When, in its timidity, or terror, or anxious longing, it de- 
sired to know what it should do, whether God loved it, 
whether He would make it happy hereafter, and could get 
no answer, oh ! I should think God's refusal to speak, His 
inexorable silence, would seem cruel, cruel ! And then, 
when you sometimes think that the Bible may be true, and 
unbelief in Christ a sin, and that an eternity of woe may 
follow a lifetime of sin and sorrow, I should think your 
heart would break with the anguish of its doubts and fears. 

My brother, we, the children of God, and you, are in the 
same low vale of mortal life ; but your eye and step are 
away from the light, in the direction where that vale de- 
scends into deeper glooms, until it ends, by a single step, 
in the black pool of death ; but we are travelling in the 
opposite direction, upwards and towards the light. The 
mountains that enclose us are tipped and radiant with light 
and glory from the eternal world. Beautiful upon the 
mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings of 
the land beyond them ; that publish peace ; that say unto 
us that our God reigneth ! Turn and go with us, and we 
will do you good, and you shall find peace to your souls. 



§n \\t Bekttoit of \\t ©bjectik mtir jjulrjettife 
Jf actors in §leklatm 



BY REV. CHARLES MINNEGERODE, 

RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, NORFOLK, VA. 



3(3 



X. 



ON THE 

RELATION OF THE OBJECTIVE AND SUB- 
JECTIVE FACTORS IN REVELATION. 

BEFORE an audience like the present — here in the 
house of God, where we congregate to feed the soul 
with the pure word of truth, the teachings and comforts 
of the Gospel — limited, as I necessarily am, to a brief space 
of time, I deem it best to drop, as much as possible, the 
technicalities of language, which might convey to the 
minds of many but obscure ideas, or encumber the subject 
with lengthy explanations. It will be best to fasten our 
attention upon the substance rather than the form, and 
single out some of the main and most salient points it 
presents to our consideration. May the Spirit of wisdom 
and understanding guide me in the performance of my 
duty ! and may you, my hearers, aid my humble effort by 
kindly lending a patient and attentive ear to the discussion 
of a subject which I hope will, before I have concluded, 
be fixed in your minds as one of vast and paramount 
importance. 

From whatever point of view we look upon man, as he 
is presented to us in actual life, he never appears as an 
isolated being. The individual is not only a link in the 
indefinite chain which stretches from the lowest dust to 

(283) 



*i84 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 

the most highly endowed creature verging on perfection ; 
he is also the centre of a circle or many circles, which 
unite upon him their converging rays. Whether we take 
him in his material, his intellectual, or his moral and social 
existence, he stands in the midst of a surrounding reality, 
which, as it is the field where his nature and individuality 
develop themselves, is also a constant source of moulding 
influences, sets bounds to the freedom of his movements, 
and gives laws to his existence. Our whole life is to some 
extent a play and counterplay of these elements; a 
conflict, more or less hostile, between the Self of the indi- 
vidual and the opposing power and reality of beings and 
laws that encircle him ; an antagonism, more or less embit- 
tered, between the forces proceeding from the individual 
as the centre, upon the periphery that is described around 
him by an almighty decree, and the forces which from that 
periphery press upon the centre. 

It is to this law of his existence that he owes his de- 
velopment. The influences of the surrounding world of 
matter and mind are the means to call forth into action 
every latent faculty. They open the avenues which lead 
the human mind to knowledge and power. In the sweat 
of his brow he earned his bread, and in the struggle for his 
existence he learned to engage in the re-conquest of the 
dominion of the earth. These laws and his necessities 
forced him to shelter himself in houses, to watch the sea- 
sons, to sow and reap the fruits of the ground ; they taught 
him to tame the elements and make them his vassals, to 
turn the devouring flame into his most useful servant, and 
extract life and health from poisonous herbs and metals ; 
they taught him to decipher the laws of the universe in 
the stars which, with their friendly light, courted his gaze ; 
they roused his energy and ingenuity to bid the ocean open 
a pathway for his fleet, to rob the thunder of his bolt, and 



MINNEGEROD E. 



285 



annihilate distance. They elicited his mental powers and 
wooed him from mere animal and material existence into 
the higher sphere of intellectual life, awakened in him the 
thirst for knowledge and sent him in pursuit of wisdom, 
to search the mind of the Creator, and think over the 
thoughts of the Deity, as they stand revealed to him incor- 
porated in His works. They made him seek the company 
of his fellows, and bound his life in the softening and en- 
nobling ties of human society, and developed those moral 
attributes which wreathe his brow with the civic crown, 
nobler than an imperial diadem — which bear witness of his 
heaven-descended origin — traces of the image of God in 
which he was created. 

But along with the triumphant shout, which well may 
ascend in honour of the high achievements and glorious 
conquests of his race, is heard the note of wailing and dis- 
tress, the tearful cry of misery, the ravings of despair. 
For man does not only, nor chiefly, move in harmony with 
the conditions that are laid down for him by his Maker in 
the surrounding reality ; but, however obscure the fact 
may appear to many in its origin, the natural result of the 
untutored exercises of the individual (whether in the ma- 
terial, intellectual, or moral aspect) leads to a contest be- 
tween the two forces; and hence the conflicts and the 
sufferings of this life ! The great problem of life is an even 
balance, the necessary equilibrium between the two ele- 
ments, between what we may term its objective and sub- 
jective factors ; the great cause of the evils which fall to 
the lot of man is, the disturbance of this equilibrium, the 
disproportion between the respective power and claims of 
the two factors. 

'Tis true, in his inferior life, man generally walks quietly 
in the leading strings of the laws of nature and nature's 
God ; the violation of the conditions of his material wel- 



286 



OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 



fare brings with it a punishment too immediate and too 
severe to allow him long to kick against the pricks, and 
when he violates them to his hurt, he does so from moral 
perversion ; witness gluttony and drunkenness ! But in his 
intellectual and moral life man moves more freely; the 
reality that still binds him in laws is less plain to his per- 
ception — if we may say so — less tangible and visible ; and 
he sins with less restraint, just because he moves in a 
higher sphere ; a being gifted with intelligence ; a moral 
agent ! But is he therefore really more free from either 
their controlling or avenging power ? They are immutable, 
of a duration commensurate with the existence of this 
world, of power irresistible ; they are the laws of God. 
Ah ! if we could have the dying confessions of all ages, we 
would learn, that of all the agonies which haunt the soul 
of man on earth, the sorest are those which the neglect 
and contempt of those laws entail upon him, which encircle 
his intellectual and moral sphere, which condition the 
growth and happiness of his intelligent and moral nature. 

We admit all the charges which the reformers of our 
days bring up against the existing order of things; we 
admit and feel all its anomalies, and to a more fearful 
extent. We know that our lauded civilization is fraught 
with curses as with blessings ; that as it is the glory of 
man, so it is his sin and his shame ; that its gigantic progress 
rests not on the basis of true happiness ; that the fearful 
momentum it has acquired threatens to sweep away the 
remaining barriers of all that we hold sacred and right ; 
that its consolidating and concentrative tendencies per- 
petuate and increase the wrongs of social inequality ; we 
foresee how also, in this country of many privileges and 
blessings, as soon as its vast area shall be crowded with an 
equally dense population, will be transacted the tragedy of 
Dives and Lazarus, which makes the heart of Europe bleed, 



M I N N E G E R 0 D E. 



£87 



and before our anxious eye looms up the dreaded spectacle 
of war — war to the knife — between the rich and the poor, 
the Princes and the Pariahs of the earth. But we refuse 
both their aims and their remedies. The statesman acts 
but negatively, and at best prolongs the " status quo" by an 
armed truce between the jarring elements of society. Po- 
litical economy applies but palliatives to evils which should 
be cured in their source ; and Socialism, in its attempts at 
positive reforms, only deepens the discord which exists be- 
tween the contending elements. It is based on the exalta- 
tion of self ; it sanctions the passions of the individual ; 
the happiness it promises is selfish, sensual ; it is impossible, 
because heightening the disproportion between the mutual 
demands of the individual and the eternal laws of his 
existence. 

The reason of these failures and the insufficiency of the 
attempted cure is, that the evil lies within, in the subjective, 
and not in the objective factors of the human life ! And, 
let it be ; let us assume, that happiness can be secured by 
a one-sided triumph. What is the result aimed at ? "Would 
it be a happiness to satisfy the aspirations of an immortal 
soul, of a spirit whose longings are upwards, and whose 
capacities are not exhausted in the search of what we shall 
eat, and what we shall drink, or wherewithal shall we be 
clothed ? Of all the attempts to degrade man in the scale 
of intelligent existences — the Socialist and the Communist 
systems of the day — the utilitarian tendencies of the age 
are among the worst ! This life would indeed be worthless, 
if it gave us but the moment, and robbed us of the future ; 
if it was bounded by earth and time, to the exclusion of 
heaven and eternity; if its threescore years and ten of 
toiling and sweating had no other aim than a membership 
in a life-and-comfort insurance company ! 

There is a remedy for all the ills and difficulties of this 



288 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 

life, a solution for all the doubts and yearnings of the soul 
— but it is only found in the establishment of perfect har- 
mony between the subjective and objective elements of our 
existence; between the world within and the world without! 
And this harmony is attainable, and blessed with the 
development and perfecting of all that is truly great and 
heavenly in the human mind, laden with the realization of 
every high hope, every immortal aspiration of the human 
heart — but only when, leaving the lower circles of our 
existence, we enlarge our horizon, and look beyond the 
laws that hem us in, up to Him who made both us and 
them ; when asking for wisdom beyond that of this world, 
from the Father of lights, the Fountain of all wisdom, we 
learn to adore " the depths both of the wisdom and know- 
ledge of God ;" when we exchange the poverty of sight for 
the inexhaustible riches of faith; when, looking upon the 
society of earth as only preparatory, we rise to the apprecia- 
tion of Heaven as our home, and seek the fellowship of the 
saints in light. Only then do we take the proper stand- 
point, from which to survey the phenomena of life, and 
understand their meaning and relative position ; only then 
can we find our guide through its labyrinths, the law to 
regulate our course, and discover harmony in the apparent 
contradictions of this life. Religion — and religion alone — 
extends our vision beyond the shadows of earth and time ; 
Religion, and religion only, raises us at once into the pre- 
sence of the great Author of our existence, and teaches us 
the proper position of the individual amidst the multi- 
tudes of beings, to which he gave life, and whom He bound 
together in the law T s of eternal harmony. Religion, only, 
discloses to us the great cause of all the woes which our 
race is heir to — the great sin of man — his apostacy from 
God, his forgetfulness of Him who made us, and of His 
will; obedience to which is the immutable condition of 



M I N N E G E R 0 D E. 



289 



creature-happiness ! Religion alone points out its all-suffi- 
cient remedy. 

Put God out of all the thoughts of the creature, and 
self becomes his centre of gravitation ; his whole existence 
becomes disordered, and the towering ambition of the indi- 
vidual, vainly struggling against the law of God, recoils 
upon himself in the endurance of the penal evils of this 
life. Put back the thought of God, and the fear and love 
of His holy name, into the heart of man, and he is poised 
securely in the strong arm and the everlasting love of his 
Maker. 'Tis true, there is his sin, which, like a yawning 
gulf, separates him from the favour of God, and exiles him 
from His presence ! But when he sees a better than the 
Roman Curtius — One radiant with divinity, yet clad in the 
rags of humanity — leap into the fearful abyss ; when he 
hears the voice of the Father call to him, " Return ;" when 
a Saviour invites him to come, come and be saved, and 
find rest for his weary, heavy-laden soul ; when the mys- 
tery of love is revealed to him, that " God so loved the 
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
belie veth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life when the counsel of grace makes known how He 
was made " to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in Him;" then 
the poor sinner learns that the chasm is closed ; reconcilia- 
tion has taken place, harmony is restored, and that there 
is now for him a free access into the presence and the 
favour of God ; that " mercy and truth are met together, 
righteousness and peace have kissed each other !" 

Thus we have reached the true position which the indi- 
vidual occupies, and the point from which the riddle of life 
must be solved. It is not so much in the relation he 
sustains to the laws of matter, mind, and human society, 

that the question of his existence is answered, his way 
37 



£90 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 

pointed out, and his steps directed, but in the relation he 
sustains to his Maker ! This relation determines all others : 
however much he strive to master them, he fails when he 
fails in his relation to God ! If God be for him, who can 
be against him ? but, if God be against him, what would it 
profit him were he to gain the whole world ? This subject 
has indeed agitated mankind at all times and everywhere. 
But we cannot pause now to prove that, though many may 
have sought and be seeking the Lord, "if haply they 
might feel after Him and find Him," yet there is but one 
way; and when we speak of Religion as the answer to 
all doubts, the panacea for all ills, the balm for every 
wound — we mean no other than Christianity ! 

But what a subject is laid open before our mind, if from 
the Christian point of view we consider the subjective and 
objective relations of human life, the position of the indi- 
vidual as conditioned by the reality of the Divine w T ill in 
all the laws and phenomena that surround him ! Oh, for 
time and ability to unrol the book of oracular responses, 
which, upon a just appreciation of this relation, from a 
perfect understanding of this subject, and this only, can be 
given to all the questions which the doubting, the fearful, 
or the hopeful, the joyous or the suffering heart of man 
can ask ! There is no question of humanity, no specula- 
tion in philosophy, no problem of society, but they find 
their solution here ! There is no problem in Christianity, 
but it illustrates and is illustrated by this relation. All 
the questions which ever agitated the Christian Church, all 
the disputes in theology, all the truths of practical religion, 
are measured by the standard of this relation ! No doc- 
trine, no practice, no moral precept, no rite or sacrament, 
no church authority, no external form of government or 
worship, no internal act of adoration and obedience, of 
faith or repentance ; but they receive their valuation, 



MINNEGERODE. 



291 



their comparative importance from this stand-point : the 
relative position, the mutual agency of God and man as the 
objective and subjective factors of oar existence. Before this 
tribunal, the great question of the sovereignty of grace 
and the freedom of the moral agent is to be argued ; here 
the claims reconciled between faith and works ; here the 
laws of proportion laid down between the visible and invi- 
sible church, the external kingdom of Christ in the 
world — and the kingdom of God " which cometh not with 
observation, but is within." 

All these questions rest upon the fact of a Divine Reve- 
lation. The fundamental question, underlying all further 
speculations on this great subject, refers to the mutual 
position of the two elements in this, in Revelation ; and to 
a few remarks on this relation, let us devote the remaining 
portion of our time. 

We will consider, first, the nature of the Revelation as 
given to man, and then the relation sustained towards it, 
both actively and passively, by man, the individual, as 
the subjective factor. 

I. To speak of the Revelation itself. The premise upon 
which we proceed is, that it is objective, that is, external, 
bestowed upon man from without, and cannot originate 
within his own mind. This is the assumption upon which 
we now proceed. We cannot delay to prove the fact of 
such a Divine Revelation, and thus of an objective or 
external communication from God to man; however 
instructive and satisfactory the task might be, to show the 
absurdity and unphilosophical character of a denial of its 
possibility, however triumphantly we could establish it by 
analogy, this is not the question before us ; it is not the 
subject of our present discussion ; we leave it to others : 
suffice it to say, that unless the discords and enormities of 
this life should be our normal condition — an external reve- 



i92 



OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 



lation is, humanly speaking, necessary. The conflict 
between the individual and the surrounding externality 
cannot be reduced to harmony by the subjective sugges- 
tions, the one-sided fiat of the individual. They would only 
increase the weight of self and deepen the disproportion. 
If harmony is to be restored, it cannot be but by the 
subjection of self upon the authoritative interposition of 
the Creator; and just as our material, intelligent, and 
moral nature has its external medium — its surrounding 
bounds, and objectively revealed laws; just so and still 
more must we infer is the spiritual nature of man placed 
face to face with a spiritual revelation of that God, who, 
after all, stands behind every existence, and both made 
the individual and appointed him his sphere of action. 
w The way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that 
walketh to direct his steps." " There is a spirit in man," 
saith the Scripture, "but the inspiration of the Almighty 
giveth men understanding." 

Now the objective element of Revelation must be : 1. De- 
finite and distinct ; to use its own words, it is " sure, giving 
light to the simple ;" otherwise it would be no safeguard 
against the vagaries of spiritual insight and the pretensions 
of fanaticism. " Divine Revelation" would be the watchword 
of every impostor, the great weapon of selfishness to tread 
down every right and law of God and man, were it not a 
record closed and complete, from which nothing can be 
taken away, and to which nothing can be added. The 
;i Spirit," indeed, is abroad, sent from the Father and the 
Son to open the eyes of man, — but, to behold the beauty of 
the law here revealed ; to open the stubborn heart, but to 
yield to the pleadings of this revelation ; to guide us into 
all truth, but truth as contained here; He takes of the 
things of Christ, and brings all things to our remembrance 
and understanding, that are here laid down; and we must 



M I N N E G E R 0 D E. 



293 



try the spirits that speak to us out of this very volume ; 
out of " the law and the testimony ; if they speak not ac- 
cording to these, it is because there is no light in them." 

2. Again, this Revelation must be unchangeable, like its 
Author and His eternal decrees towards man. All human 
knowledge is but relative, and requires some fixed standard 
by which it must measure itself ; and here, in the Revela- 
tion sent from God, it is fixed immutably ! Though, for 
his own wise and gracious purposes, the Creator may sus- 
pend the laws of the material creation and miraculously 
interpose creative power, where, ordinarily, to the percep- 
tion of man, His sustaining laws prevail ; in the Revelation 
which contains the expression of His will, the delineation 
of that holiness which is His glory, and which He demands 
the rational creature to follow after; the promises with 
which He wooes us to obedience, the threatenings by which 
He would deter us from evil ; in the revelation of His own 
moral attributes and of the demands He makes on His moral 
creatures — there can be no variableness, neither shadow 
of turning ; heaven and earth may pass away, but not a 
jot or tittle of His law, till all be fulfilled ; father and mo- 
ther may forsake us, and every man become a liar, but 
God is true, and all His promises are aye and amen ! 

3. And since this Revelation would be without purpose, 
did it not meet with its field of operation in the life, the 
mind, and will of man, it is plain, that it must be placed 
within his reach; and if God has indeed given such a Reve- 
lation — such a declaration of His holy will, and of His 
gracious counsel, which is to be " a lamp to our feet, and a 
light to our path," a guide to holiness and heaven, a light- 
house in the dark days of our pilgrimage, and tempest- 
tossed voyage below — then it must be evident, that He who 
thought fit to give it, would also secure its propagation and 
continuance anions: those to whom it is vouchsafed ; that 



OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 



though all other records might be lost or corrupted, this 
should be wonderfully preserved ; that though all other 
knowledge might not only be obscured, but even extin- 
guished, this should be kept alive even amidst the darkest 
ages and the days of overwhelming ignorance ; that, sent 
by the Supreme Ruler, the Almighty Governor of the world, 
it would not fail in its end- that, if its object is declared to 
bi3 the founding and building of an holy Church, the saving 
of sinners justified in Christ — if along with this declared 
intention goes the promise of His continued presence, even 
to the end of the world — then we could trust, that though we 
do not claim infallibility for anything but this Revelation 
itself, and not for any particular society that hopes to be 
founded upon it, yet the indefectibility of the Christian 
Church, which is the object of this gracious Revelation, is 
thereby guarantied, that the true Church shall not fail ; 
that though the mass of mankind in all ages may pass by 
heedlessly the claims of God and of his Church, yet in all 
ages there has been a band of faithful followers of Christ 
that should be saved, witnesses to His truth and power; 
there is at all times the certainty to cheer the humble 
seeker after truth, that he is accompanied in his heaven- 
ward career by others, who like him seek Christ the Beloved, 
aided by their prayers, watched over by the ministering 
spirits of God, rejoicing over penitent sinners ; that he may 
ever trust to find those with whom to worship God in spirit 
and in truth, and in whose company, and by whose example 
and conversation, he may increase in grace and knowledge 
and every spiritual gift. 

4. The last, but a most practically important feature in 
the objective revelation, given by the Ruler of the Universe 
to the children of men for their guidance and salvation, 
is its supreme authority, its claims to immediate and uni- 
versal obedience on the part of those to whom it is sent ! 



M I N N E G E U 0 D E. 



195 



If its claims are disregarded, truly the great God will not 
force free agents into an unwilling obedience, which would 
be none at all. But they disobey at their own risk, the 
Divine displeasure must be visited upon them. And oh ! 
if the violations of nature's laws bring suffering and agony 
in their train, " What shall be the end of those who believe 
not the Gospel ?" Yes, " if the righteous scarcely be saved, 
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" Revela- 
tion is not silent, but only when you leave this beauteous 
earth behind, and bid farewell to its " happy sun and healthy 
breezes," when you depart from all that bears the traces of 
God's love and goodness, and go and ask at the gates of 
Gehenna, can you fathom the import and despair of an 
irremediable, everlasting, hopeless controversy with God ! 
In this, its supreme authority, Revelation presses itself 
most closely upon man, and imposes on each individual the 
necessity of knowing and holding the truth in its objective 
reality and positive character. 

If I had not detained you already so long that I must 
economize every moment that is left me, I could enlarge 
on this point, and prove, from the history of man and the 
events of God's Church, from the beginning down to this 
day, how important it is to adhere to the positive features 
of Revelation. I could show how the development of the 
subjective element of individual freedom, to the neglect of 
these positive objective features, always proved destructive 
to the power of the Church and the vitality of religion ; 
how, for instance, the strength of the Western Church, and 
its all but exclusive importance as compared with the 
Eastern ; how its greater power, its missionary success, its 
world-w T ide spread and universal triumph — even whilst the 
truth was overlaid with gross and false conceptions in faith 
and practice ; how all was owing to the distinctness with 
which it held on to the positive features of Revelation (so 



296 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 

much so, indeed, as even to annihilate the subjective fac- 
tor ; and hence its apostacy from the truth) ; how, since 
the Reformation, the Lutheran Church, the first to move 
and boldest in the attack upon the claims of Romish priest- 
craft, soon yielded in importance and influence to the 
Church of Geneva, because the latter developed more clearly, 
and less encumbered by a subjective mysticism, the positive 
realities of the Gospel. And I might be pardoned for 
indulging myself here in a fond remembrance of the com- 
prehensive spirit of our own beloved Church, with which she 
unites the claims of the freedom of individual conscience 
with the binding force of a positive Revelation ; and of the 
well-balanced judgment with which she avoids the danger 
of two opposite extremes — antinomian licentiousness, and 
an oppressive, soulless dogmatism. But I will only appeal 
to the experience of every Christian man, and ask if such 
positive belief is not the very soul of his prayers ; and if 
he would exchange his Father in Heaven, his Comforter 
and Friend and Saviour, whom he finds in the Gospel, for 
a mere phantom of abstractions ? If he finds not more 
comfort and better strength, when realizing the presence 
of Jesus, who loved him first and sought him as he went 
astray, and who, in that He himself has suffered, being 
tempted, is surely willing and able to succour him in his 
temptations ; when leaning on the faithful Friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother, that affectionately bears 
w 7 ith him his sorrows and shares with him his conflicts, 
who weeps with him when he weepeth, and rejoiceth with 
him when he rejoiceth ; if this Christian consciousness of 
the reality of spiritual communion, this realization of aid 
and comfort from above, does not arm him with greater 
fortitude than all the vague conceptions of mere philosophy; 
if he is not safe when holding on to the positive features 
of the Gospel, having the substance of things hoped for, the 



M I N N E G E R 0 D E. 



297 



evidence of things not seen ; if he is not sure to fall when 
leaving these green pastures, he feeds his soul in the sterile 
wilds of speculation? 

But we have thus been drawn insensibly into the con- 
sideration of the relation which the individual sustains to 
the revealed truth. 

II. The individual, as the subjective factor, may, in his 
position to the objective element of Kevelation, be con- 
sidered — 

1. Actively, that is, as apprehending and constructing 
the religious truths revealed. And this subjective agency is 
absolutely necessary to make him a Christian. However 
true it is, that Revelation comes from without — that it is 
bestowed upon man externally, given him from above, and 
as corning from the Sovereign of his soul, claiming his 
submission ; still its truth must not remain external, but be 
taken up within, and become in him the source of life and 
action, a well of living water springing up into eternal life. 
Faith is certainly required of him, and must stand him in 
stead of sight; he must believe, where upon belief alone 
his premises can rest ; he must believe where demonstration 
necessarily fails ; he must live by faith and not by sight. 
But this belief must not be a blind superstition, without 
evidences; not a submission to what any artful deceiver 
may represent to him as Revelation and God's will. He 
must examine for himself, and be able to " give a reason 
for the hope that is in him." And his faith must not be 
dead ; a lifeless creed, a mere heartless assent to some 
intellectual and moral proposition; but it must become 
within him a principle of action, affecting his every 
thought, word, and deed ; a guide of life, an energy, a 
heart-converting, life-reforming power. Man must do his 
'part ; lie neither can believe and know, nor obey and pray, 

by proxy ! He therefore must first examine the record, 

38 



£98 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 

and from it draw his knowledge of the truth ; he must 
search the Scriptures, and acquaint himself with God as 
there speaking to him; he must possess himself of its 
contents, and, by the aid of that reason with which God 
has endowed him, that he might know Him and hear 
His voice, he must master their meaning. He must be 
careful, indeed, to draw proper limits to the exercise of his 
reasoning and imaginative powers, never placing them 
above the given record ; always submitting them to its 
ultimate authority ; never, indeed, cut himself loose from 
this centre, and be allured into the byways and ramblings 
of the undisciplined intellect and heated phantasy of man ; 
never venture to make himself the judge of Kevelation, or 
put himself in opposition to its teachings, pretending to 
discriminate between what he condescends to admit as 
truly Divine and what he dogmatically declares mere 
human addition, and thus plunging into all the delusions 
of a proud but foolish infidelity. He must take God's 
declarations as he finds them, learn the mind of God from 
His own words, and find out the meaning of each oracle by 
the unerring light which others shed on it. He must hold 
on to this rock — which alone can afford him a shelter 
against the waves of doubt and delusion — but he must not 
neglect the right and duty of his subjective action ; he 
must make it the subject of all his most earnest efforts, and 
most severe mental exercises. The Lord will not be 
pleased with a service which costs us nothing ; the Lord 
will not excuse ignorance where the means of knowledge 
were within reach, and not allow His word, which is the 
guide to everlasting life, His truth which sanctifies, His 
love which conquers the stubborn will, to be treated with 
less respect and less care than those inferior laws and 
experiences which refer but to the cares and comforts of 
the body! Man is responsible for his belief! And the 



M I N N E G E R 0 D E. 



^99 



knowledge of God thus gained must be the rule of his life. 
Faith is " dead, and can but lead to fear and the trembling 
of devils/' which does not " work by love, and purify the 
heart." Man must not only search the Scriptures, but live 
the Scriptures ! " Not the hearer, but the doer, of the word 
is blessed." 

2. But the subjective element may also be considered 
passively, that is, as operated upon by revealed truth. 
And such is the power of the objective element in Revela- 
tion, that it is not only evidenced in those who are its 
disciples and followers, but also unconsciously, to some 
extent, in others. 

Its power is thus manifested in the dark groping of all 
mankind after the knowledge of God; and, in fact, the 
cardinal features of all religion, be they never so much 
disgraced by superstitions, and debauched by abominations, 
bear some traces (however faint) of the original revelation 
given to the Father of our race, which no time and no 
return to barbarism have entirely effaced : the sinfulness 
of man ancl therefore the necessity of atonement, and the 
incarnation of the Deity, be it in the elements, or in the 
form of hero-worship, or in the Fetish of wood and stone. 
There is no prayer uttered, no worship paid, no offering 
brought, no victim slain, but to propitiate an offended or 
thank a pardoning God : for there is no hope on earth, no 
trust in heaven, but through an incarnate Saviour ! 

Again, it manifests itself in the search of many, amidst 
the real or apparent contradictions of outward claims, after 
a tangible representative of the objective factor, after an 
authoritative and infallible interpreter and dispenser of 
the truths and blessings of Revelation. This is the course 
of the individual whom the partial knowledge of God gives 
no rest; but who, unenlightened or indolent, hides the 
talent of his subjective agency, and forbears to search out 



COO OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 

God in His own Word, and follow its guidance in the 
actual duties of life, and in the relation which he occupies 
directly and immediately to his God. This changes reli- 
gion into fear, and is the mother of all superstition : it has 
at all times been the reason why people submitted to a 
sacerdotal priesthood, and clung to the mediation of men 
and sacramental charms ; in our days, I need not say, it is 
a main cause of the lamented defections and perversions 
to Rome. 

But even in those who openly refuse the authority of 
Revelation its power is felt. Even if man resolves, he 
cannot cut himself loose from the influences of Christianity ; 
and though he may ungratefully spurn them, deny their 
reality, and rob God of the glory of the blessings he 
unhesitatingly appropriates, he is but the stipendiary, he 
is but the beneficiary of the blessings wdiich Revelation 
has brought us. Even for the infidels of our days, Christi- 
anity has proved the great teacher — the Bible, even for 
them, is the great storehouse of the thoughts and vaunted 
truths of their systems ; in all their speculations they are 
influenced and irresistibly carried on by this very Revela- 
tion which they deny ; and owe all that they most prize 
and boast of, to that religion which they persecute ! 

But we must conclude, and can merely point at the 
Christian, the believer in the Revelation of God as affected 
by its energizing power. What is it that has changed the 
sinner to a saint; that made the carnal man spiritual, and 
renewed the old man in the image of God ? What made 
of the child of the devil a child of God, of the enemy of 
Christ a member of his body, of the child of wrath an 
inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven ? It teas not self, but 
God ! The power of the Highest let itself down upon him. 
Grace has saved him, and nothing but grace ! Grace has 
freed him from the wages of sin and the bondage of death ; 



M I N N E G E R 0 D E. 



COl 



grace led him to the only spot where the fallen creature 
can stand — to the foot of the cross ! Grace taught his 
proud and carnal mind to bow and meekly pray, " Make 
me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a right spirit within 
me !" Grace has enlisted him in the service of God, which 
alone is perfect freedom ; grace gives him the chart, by 
which to steer his ark across the sea of life ! Grace leads 
him on rejoicing towards his heavenly home, calms every 
fear, quiets every storm, and arms him for his earthly pil- 
grimage. His Bible in hand, supported by love unspeak- 
able and wisdom unerring, he meets the questions of this 
life ; its fears and terrors are gone for him ; he is secure in 
the love of God ; its jarring discords are hushed as he 
listens to the harmonies of Heaven ; its ills are changed to 
blessings, as he sees in all the loving hand of a Father, and 
learns to say, "it is good for me that I have been afflicted;" 
its duties and trials are changed to scenes of triumph, as 
he goes about doing the work of God, doing it now, while 
it is the day, the appointed time, and doing it with all his 
might, to the praise and glory of his God and Saviour, 
knowing that "his labour shall not be in vain in the Lord." 
He meets his fellow man, but meets him as a brother ; his 
feet are shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, 
and all social strife falls, as if touched by Ithuriel's spear, 
before the talisman of the Bible — " Whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." He 
rises above the wisdom of the world, and seeks that wisdom 
"'which makes wise unto salvation;" drawing his know- 
ledge from the fountain of truth, he discerns spiritual 
things spiritually, and sees, reflected in the shadows of 
earth and time, the realities of eternity. He meets the 
evils of this earthly life, but the}' fade before his sight as 
he looks beyond, and has " respect to the recompense of 
reward," in His presence " at whose right hand are plea- 



;;02 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. 

sures for evermore." He learns that " the light affliction 
here, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory ;" and rejoices that, 
like his Saviour, he shall " be made perfect through suffer- 
ing." And when the last enemy draws nigh, and Death 
throws its shadow across his path, day begins to dawn 
more and more in his soul, and the last doubts are solved, 
the last fear allayed ; he knows " that his Eedeemer 
liveth, whom he shall see in his flesh, and his eyes shall 
behold from the depth of the grave ascends his Saviour's 
voice — " I am the resurrection and the life and from the 
height the echo returns the song — " Blessed are the dead 
that die in the Lord." He feels that " death is swallowed 
up in victory ;" and the light of immortality breaks upon 
the gloom of the grave as he sees Heaven open, and his 
Eedeemer standing at the right hand of power, the crown 
of life in His hand, and the greeting of Heaven on His lips 
— "Welcome, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou 
into the joy of thy Lord !" 



P0ire.n1 ftmmmjr 110 Argument against 



BY RT. REV. GEORGE BURGESS, D.D., 

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF MAINE. 



XI. 



THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT 
AGAINST THE GOSPEL. 

"If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out?" St. Ltjke, xi. 19. 

IN the historical scenes of the New Testament, our Sa- 
viour stands surrounded by an afflicted multitude ; and, 
with the sick, the lame, and the blind, appear the victims 
possessed by evil spirits. All are received with the same 
Divine compassion, and alike they all go away, relieved 
and rejoicing. It is a most simple and literal narrative. 
The demons tormented the sufferers ; the demons spoke ; 
the demons were cast out. A distinct portion of the power 
given to the Apostles, and promised to them that should 
believe, was to cast out devils ; and the Seventy returned 
from their appointed journey through Palestine with joy, 
because the devils were subject unto them, through the 
name of Jesus. 

For a long time after the close of the apostolic age, the 
ejection of evil spirits was deemed a familiar occurrence. 
That promised power was assumed with humble confidence ; 
and at last the exorcist, as an ecclesiastical officer, took his 
place, not necessarily to work miracles, but to perform an 
act of faith and prayer to which, in such faith and prayer, 
every Christian was supposed to be equal. It is hard to 
assign a reason for believing that the early Christians were 

39 (305) 



3C6 THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 

mistaken in this ; or to determine, in opposition to them, 
that demoniacal possession ceased with the lives of the 
Apostles ; for the same primitive testimony which assures 
us that the scriptural narratives of possessions and dispos- 
sessions were penned by certain inspired writers, affirms 
that when the writers of that narrative were no more, the 
wonders were sometimes witnessed still. 

The Inspired Record alludes also to other exorcisms, 
besides those miraculous cures of demoniacs which were 
performed by our Lord and His Apostles. The seven sons 
of Sceva attempted the act, unbelievingly, but with the 
name of Jesus upon their lips; and, though they prevailed 
not, the demon answered them with vehement words and a 
furious assault — and the possession was as evident as if the 
exorcism had been triumphant. John encountered a man 
who was casting out devils in the name of Jesus, but followed 
not with the disciples; and, though John forbade him, 
the prohibition of the Apostle was not sanctioned by his 
Master. In the text, that unerring Master answered a 
blasphemous charge of His enemies, by appealing to what 
must have been a well-known example. They alleged that 
He cast out devils by the prince of the devils ; it was the 
only explanation which remained ; for the miracles could 
not be denied, and, rather than submit, the Pharisees and 
Scribes blasphemed. " If I," said He, in reply, " if I by 
Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them 
out?" Interpreters, ancient and modern, unwilling to 
imagine that this power could be wielded except by the 
disciples of our Lord, have sometimes suggested that these, 
as being of the Jewish nation, are here called children of 
those by whom that nation was represented. But the 
suggestion could never have been prompted by the words 
themselves ; and to term the Apostles sons of the Phari- 
sees, is surely to do violence both to language and to 



BURGESS. 



£07 



feeling. It may be better said that it was sufficient for the 
purpose of the reply, that the Jews attempted or pretended 
to cast out demons. The question then remains open, 
whether the demons actually fled at their command. At 
that time the general belief was, that such bad spirits took 
possession of the bodies and souls of men ; and that they 
might be and had been driven out by angelic aid, by 
magic art, and by the prayers of holy persons. Whatever 
be the authority of the Book of Tobit, it confirmed 
opinions like these; and they were not without some 
seeming support from the history of Saul. No attack 
upon this popular belief is to be seen in these or in any 
other words of our Saviour. They left the hearer as free 
as ever, and probably even more inclined, to believe it still. 

There is yet other testimony. The J ewish historian, Jo- 
sephus, was born within some ten years after these words 
were spoken. He says, that he had seen the expulsion of 
demons through certain spells, the origin of which was 
ascribed to Solomon. He relates how such an exorcism 
took place in the presence of Vespasian and the Koman 
army. He says that the exorcist, to assure the spectators 
of the fact, set a vessel of water at a little distance, and 
ordered the demon, as he passed out, to overturn the vessel ; 
and that when this was done, the skill and wisdom of 
Solomon, the author of the spell, were signally revealed. 
It is true that ancient historians abound in stories of in- 
credible wonders. But the wonders related in the Bible 
would not be the less true, were they told by uninspired as 
well as by inspired historians; this historian, Josephus, 
lived in the very times when Apostles still cast out evil 
spirits, and he speaks of just such exorcists as those whose 
practices are mentioned by St. Luke at the very same 
period. He is an independent witness to two facts, the appa- 
rent possession and the asserted exorcism, — both of which 



308 



THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 



are implied in the very words of our Saviour, " By whom 
do your sons cast them out ?" Had any of us been present 
with Josephus and the host of Vespasian, we might, with 
our present sentiments, have pronounced the exorcism an 
imposture on one side or on both. But had it occurred 
forty }/ears earlier, in the presence of the Lord Jesus, how 
would He have spoken ? The incantation He might have 
denounced ; the exorcist He might have condemned ; like 
those whom, even though they shall cry, " Have we not 
cast out devils in thy name?" He shall reject as workers 
of iniquity. But there is no more cause to believe that He 
would have directly denied the possession or the departure, 
than to wonder that, in the text, He does not pronounce 
the exorcisms of the sons of the Pharisees to be a delusion 
or an imposture. 

It is beyond dispute that the Scriptures introduce to our 
knowledge a world of "spirits, pushing its agency within the 
borders of this visible world, without other permission than 
that under which the arch enemy walks to and fro on the 
earth. Distinct from the blessed ministry of angels, distinct 
from the appearance of saints that have slept, this is an 
agency, powerful for mischief, and yet contemptible as well 
as horrible in its manifestation. These spirits dwelt — a 
multitude at once — in one wretched man or woman. They 
loved to hurl a lunatic boy into the fire or water, or stretch 
him on the ground foaming. They could find relief in 
driving a herd of swine down a precipice into the engulf- 
ing deep. They acknowledged the Lord and His servants 
with cries of desperate hostility, and obeyed with every 
wish to make stubborn resistance. Anguish, horror, and 
madness came with them, and with them fled away. The 
original Scripture terms them "demons;" a name not 
necessarily expressing, what was nevertheless their real 
character ; not necessarily identical with that of devils, but 



BURGESS. 



309 



capable of being applied to any subordinate, invisible intel- 
ligences who could be known to man. 

Such beings, half a century since, the unbeliever could 
not conceive. He derided their acts and denied their exist- 
ence ; and some Christian divines bent to the breeze, and 
wavered. The era of materialism had hardly passed its 
meridian. Men seemed not to feel that the world beyond 
the senses could be as real as the world which the senses 
recognise. Even Christians rather thought of the life to 
come as of a distant land, the reality of which, by a strong 
effort of faith, they could credit as they credited the 
miracles of the Scriptures, than as of a sphere which was 
all around them, close about them, as natural as what they 
saw, and only needing that a thin, slight veil should be 
lifted, to be seen indeed. 

From age to age, the human mind vibrates to and fro ; 
and not without an overruling finger. When the obscure 
phenomena of Mesmerism were whispered abroad, a revolu- 
tion began. Suspected, ridiculed, suppressed, revived, con- 
fused, perverted, exaggerated, condemned, contradicted, 
they still made their way onward towards slow, but pro- 
bably general acceptance. The possible action of the soul 
without the senses, but in intercourse with other souls and 
bodies, was established. A change came gradually over 
the floating mass of popular unbelief. Before, it questioned 
the possibility of a revelation ; now, it promised to reveal 
more than the Gospel itself. It had attempted to under- 
mine the majestic walls : it now went up, as if it would 
take wings, and from above poured down its darts upon the 
garrison. 

This form of hostility, the Christianity of our age is called 
to overcome. It is in vain to meet it with the weapons 
which unbelief has just cast aside. Infidelity was incredu- 
lous ; we must not simply adopt its abandoned incredulity. 



310 THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 

That false and foolish wisdom which glories in believing as 
little as it can, is unworthy of Christian imitation. The facts 
of what in popular language is called Spiritualism, may be 
one thing or another ; but simply to close our ears against 
all evidence, can neither convince our fellow men, nor satisfy 
ourselves. Feeble is the foundation of that faith, which 
does not believe, concerning the spiritual world, greater 
things than these. It may be, too, that God has shut up 
one of the paths trodden before by common Infidelity, that 
it might thus be driven into another, from which the transi- 
tion to a true and humble faith might be more easy. 

There is no necessary call, however, upon the Christian, as 
such, to decide on the real characters of these appearances. 
They may be natural, or preternatural; but they must 
doubtless be of the same order with those which he believes 
to have been witnessed in many past ages, from the days 
of Job and of Abraham downward; and they no more 
touch His higher confidence, than the faith of the patriarchs 
was shaken by the skill or power of magicians. Should 
they be human impostures ; should they be simple delu- 
sions ; should they be the operations of physical or psychical 
laws yet undeveloped ; should they be deceptive communi- 
cations from a world more evil than this ; should they be 
anomalous and broken tokens from the sphere of the dead ; 
or should all these characters be mingled, he is prepared 
for all. They will be made tributary, in one manner or in 
another, to the truth which God has revealed, and which 
God will defend. It is not my present task to explain 
them ; but to show that, whatever be their real character, 
they furnish no foundation from which the revealed word 
of the living God can be successfully assailed. 

I. Suppose them, if you will, mere impostures. It is a 
violent supposition. It is a supposition which I hold it 
quite impossible to entertain. All certainty from human 



BURGESS. 



311 



testimony is at an end, if we may presume that many 
thousands of our fellow-men, as honest, as sagacious, and 
as credible as any of the rest, have, in many different places, 
without concert, and without motive, unconsciously united 
to force the same strange lie, in the same strange manner, 
upon mankind. But, supposing imposture, can it be turned 
against the Christian Revelation, as if that were of the like 
nature, and sustained only by corresponding evidence ? 

Place then in the balance the wonders of modern necro- 
mancy, if such it be, and the miracles of the Scriptures. 
On one side are sounds which it is hard to distinguish from 
the slightest touches of the human finger ; motions and ele- 
vations of a block of wood ; spasmodic penmanship, which 
writes out rhapsodies or enigmas, poor common sense or 
utter nonsense, facts of the smallest value, or falsehoods of 
less than none. On the other side, the sick rise healed from 
a thousand beds ; the blind receive their sight in an instant ; 
the winds and the sea are calmed at a word; a few loaves 
of bread become the food of thousands; water blushes 
into wine; the voice of God speaks from the sky; the dead 
revive; the transfigured body shines like light ; and departed 
saints return and are visible to mortals. If there could be 
imposture here, it must be, not in the facts, but in the 
narratives. Such miracles might be told, perhaps, by an 
impostor, but by no impostors would they be attempted. 
Their number, their vastness, their whole creative character, 
as utterly mock all ancient or modern imitation, as the 
insect clouds, the darkness throughout all Egypt, and the 
death of all her first-born, mocked the magicians of the 
court of Pharaoh. The miracles of the Scriptures would 
not feel the very breath of that storm of indignation which 
might sweep away these impostures of to-day, if impostures 
they were. 

II. But possibly you suppose no impostures, but simple 



312 THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 

delusions. You content yourselves, perhaps, with saying 
that the observers and the performers imagined, you know- 
not how, what they neither saw nor did; exaggerated 
what they saw and did; and from some small incidents 
and coincidences, explicable or inexplicable, raised their 
ingenious structure, bewildering themselves by their own 
interpretations. It is an easy mode of disposing of a 
subject which we want leisure to examine. But then, no 
possible resemblance can be found between them and the 
mighty deeds of which our Redeemer said, " If ye believe 
not me, believe the works." When Lazarus came out from 
the sepulchre, it could be no delusion on any side. All 
men knew that, if not an abominable conspiracy, it was a 
glorious miracle. When the Apostles declared that they 
had conversed with their Master after His resurrection, 
and had seen the wounds in His hands and side, there was 
no possibility of delusion. They either promulgated a 
solemn, complete falsehood, or they spoke of what they 
had seen and heard, and their hands had handled, of the 
Word of Life. 

III. Far more probable than the supposition of simple 
imposture, or of simple delusion, is that of the operation 
of natural laws, physical or psychical, but as yet unde- 
veloped or unknown. Mind communicates with mind in 
modes with which science has but the most indistinct 
acquaintance. The brain, the nerves, the vital powers, 
the relations between the body and the soul, the magnetism 
of the human system, the channels of communication 
between the inner man and the outer world, the very nature 
of that world itself as contrasted with spirit ; all this is a 
sphere of which little is taught us except by experience. 
If new experience should decidedly affirm the most start- 
ling facts, the old experience is not sufficient to justify by 
its own ignorance of such facts, the rejection of their 



BURGESS. 



313 



reality. It may very well be true that these phenomena 
may proceed from such causes, as well as other phenomena 
which can no longer be questioned, but which were once 
almost as wonderful. It may be that the mind, in certain 
states, may partake the thoughts of others without word 
or sign. It may be that it can control the movements of 
a body not its own. It may be that all the alleged disclo- 
sures from the world of spirits have been only the kind of 
reflection of what the mind was in itself or in other minds ; 
a reflection clothed in fantastic forms like those of a revery 
or a dream. It may even be that the soul may assume 
something of the power which it shall wield in its disem- 
bodied state, and that the future and the distant may come 
within its dim perception. We do not know the limits 
beyond which our Creator may have decreed that the 
natural faculties shall never advance. We cannot know, 
while every other science glories in its discoveries and their 
application, that the experimental science of the soul may 
not bring to light its peculiar wonders. It ill becomes us 
to presume that no motions are ever to be perceived within 
us of powers which wait to spread their wings, when the 
worm shall emerge from the chrysalis, and fly upward. 
When we were children, it seemed quite as probable that a 
man in a trance might see what was taking place a thou- 
sand miles off at that moment, as that it could be told him 
by a current darting along a wire as swiftly as his thought. 
It is no settled law of nature that sight, hearing, and touch, 
shall alone communicate knowledge ; or that the mind can 
exercise no physical instrumentality but through the bodily 
organs ; no more a settled law than that mechanical powers 
are the only force which man can set in motion. Perhaps 
all which can be proved of the marvels so often asserted, 
may be but the results of laws w T hich are yet to be deve- 
loped, or which are involved in no peculiar mystery. 
4) 



314 THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 

If it be so, is any unfavourable light thrown back upon 
the wonders recorded in Scripture ? Could these also be 
the results of such laws of nature ? The thought would 
confound every conception of laws, and leave no remnant 
of a distinction between the common providence of God 
and His extraordinary interposition. Then, indeed, if it 
were said that there could be no miracles, it would be said 
with equal truth that all events were miracles. We need 
not be careful to insist upon such a term as " the laws of 
nature :" the question only is, whether power beyond that 
which is placed within the reach of man as man has been 
exerted. Those who wrought the miracles of Scripture all 
professed that they wrought them by power not human, 
not inherent, but communicated and Divine. Their know- 
ledge that such results would follow their words or acts, 
w T as not sought but sent. They studied nothing; they dis- 
covered nothing ; they felt the impulse from God, and in 
His name they did the works which spoke the hand of the 
Creator as clearly as these wonders which are not miracles 
speak the hand of a creature. You can conceive that 
beings who can by their skill construct tables, can by their 
will cause them to move; but you cannot conceive that 
any other but He who breathed into man the breath of 
life, and made him a living soul, can breathe it into him 
again when he has ceased to live. You can conceive not 
only that 

" old experience can attain 

To something like prophetic strain," 

but also that the mind may strictly see what the eye can- 
not of some events which cast their shadows before ; but 
you cannot conceive that any but those to whom it has 
been expressly revealed should unfold the counsels of the 
Most High, extending from the beginning to the end of all 
things, and embracing the scheme of all events, and the 



BURGESS. 315 

great, gracious purposes of all. Such is Scriptural pro- 
phecy : not merely single facts, few or many, but the vast 
chain which links together the whole destinies of a fallen 
and redeemed world. Whether such miracles and prophe- 
cies be interruptions of the laws of nature, or d awnings of 
a highest law, higher than all our visible system ; they, to 
whom alone, of all mankind, the Almighty has permitted 
thus to do and speak in His name, and who thus did and 
spoke to teach us that which is holier to our hearts and 
souls than all else beneath the skies ; they were to us the 
messengers, the accredited messengers, of God. 

IV. But we pass on to another supposition, which, to 
many Christians, seems by no means the least probable 
of all. What if these alleged disclosures from another 
world, through sounds or signs or letters, should be from 
the deceptive agency of demons ? Without affirming that 
they are, and I would not even seem to affirm it, we may 
say that, the more wonderful they may appear, the stronger 
will become the presumptive argument for that dreadful 
origin. Should the appearances become such that earthly 
and natural causes are plainly insufficient, there remain 
but three preternatural agencies : the ministry of good 
angels, the friendship of the departed, and the hatred of 
evil spirits. The ministry of good angels it cannot be, be- 
cause it ascribes to itself a different character, and good 
angels could not come under a false aspect. But if the 
message proceed either from departed spirits or from de- 
mons, which source is most probable ? Little is proved by 
the assertion of the agents themselves ; since evil spirits 
would, of course, be deceivers, and might very well per- 
sonate saints in light. If we had reason to suspect their 
presence, the very first lesson of prudence would be, to 
confide in nothing. Truth would, of course, be mingled 
with the falsehood ; the danger would else be too trans- 



316 



THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 



parent. Not for a moment should reliance be inspired by 
their assumed characters, nor by the truths which they tell; 
and as little should we be persuaded by the extent of their 
knowledge. Were it vastly more than it appears, it ought 
not to be heard with any amazement. For, to employ the 
somewhat quaintly expressed sentiment of Bishop Black- 
hall, " let it be considered that the Devil is very old, and 
hath had long experience ;" and, we may add, let it be re- 
membered that, low as has been his fall, he is still a being 
of faculties originally most glorious, 

" nor appears 

Less than archangel ruined." 

The union of falsehood and truth, of subtlety and stupidity, 
of extensive knowledge and brutish grossness, of preterna- 
tural power and less than infantine incapacity in the use 
of instruments, is exactly what the Scriptural representa- 
tion of evil spirits would lead us to anticipate, and is cha- 
racteristic of an angelic intellect overthrown. Then comes 
the striking resemblance between the phenomena observed 
in those who are called the media and in those who, of old, 
were possessed by demons. In both, a mortal is placed 
between us and the alleged agent. In both, he acts against 
or without his will. In both, the effort of the unseen spirit 
to communicate is rude and awkward, and nearly abortive. 
In both, the frequent result or concomitant is lunacy, more 
or less miserable. In both, there is a certain compelled 
homage to the Gospel ; and yet, in both, a hostility to the 
Gospel, avowed or disguised. Remember, too, that men 
have been met by these revelations, if such they be, while 
they were walking in paths which the Most High has 
solemnly forbidden. He has denounced, as a most dreadful 
sin, the practice of necromancy, which is simply seeking 
oracles from the dead. They who attempt such consulta- 



B U R G E S S. 



317 



tions may well encounter those whom they have not sum- 
moned. They may well look for the wages of their guilt 
in a bitter if not a fatal deception. And what, perhaps, is 
most of all, no other class of facts is known from sacred or 
profane history, which can sustain any such comparison, 
except those which are connected with demoniacal posses- 
sions. The dead have never spoken, unless when Samuel 
came to Saul, and when Moses and Elias were upon the 
Mount ; and then they appeared and were recognised. 
Even if any of the tales of apparitions, by day or by night, 
in waking or in sleep, could be believed, yet were they at 
least apparitions, not noises, not spasms. But evil spirits, 
if we credit the Scriptures or ancient authors, have used 
the limbs and voices of men, to delude, to torment, and to 
destroy. 

If these appearances should be the operations of such 
spirits — a thing, which I again say, I would by no means 
seem to assert — they must confirm, even while they strive 
to assail, the most peculiar disclosures of the Bible. It is 
almost as if we were transported back to the days when 
the strong man armed held his palace in peace, till the 
stronger than he should approach, and Satan should fall 
like lightning from Heaven. 

V. We come to the utmost supposition : What if it were 
even admitted that departed spirits had made some rude 
efforts to communicate with the living, and had been per- 
mitted so far to prevail as to give a few vague answers to 
vague questions, in a manner allowed to be difficult and 
disturbed, and very often delusive ? There surely is no 
adequate proof or plausible colour of anything like this. 
But, what if there were? What if necromancy, guilty as 
it is, should be but the more guilty for the reality of its 
results? In the mere fact there is no contradiction to 
revealed truth, could the fact be established that the dead 



318 THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 

have spoken. The only questions would be, have they 
spoken that which is beyond revealed truth ? and have 
they spoken that to which revealed truth is contradictory? 

To be assured of the truth of any new revelation from 
sources like these, would be impossible, even though we 
knew that the voices were the voices of the dead. The 
channel is corrupt and forbidden, and therefore the dis- 
closures may be deceptive. If the dead should even tell us 
that they are at rest, and describe the state in which they 
dwell, who could assure us that they were not false, that 
they might not be betraying us to the same rain which had 
overwhelmed them, or that they were not mischievously 
sporting with our rash curiosity ? How could we be certified 
that they were the persons whom they personated ? But 
it is unnecessary to dwell upon the possibility of such 
deceit, since the whole mass of what has been pretended 
to be revealed in mere addition, not in contradiction, to the 
Word of God, is only such, as were it true, would have but 
the least conceivable value, would be but as the dust of the 
balance. 

Contradictions, however, to the word of God, have been 
uttered, as from the world of the dead ; and then the issue 
is directly raised between the Revelation which we have re- 
ceived through the Prophets and Apostles and the Lord 
Jesus Christ, on one side, and the disclosures which pur- 
port to come from departed spirits, on the other. They 
affirm what the Scriptures deny. They dispute what the 
Scriptures declare. Which shall be believed ? Some of 
the very persons who are represented could claim no confi- 
dence while they lived, and death could not have entitled 
them to be heard in opposition to the voice of Inspiration. 
Of others we do not know whether they are indeed present, 
or whether some false spirits have stolen their names and 
imitated their manner and knowledge. But if they be 



BURGESS. 



319 



present, and be they who they may, the Christian believer 
can have but one answer : " Though an angel from Heaven 
preach any other Gospel, let him be accursed f " We wrestle 
not merely against flesh and blood, but against principalities, 
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this 
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Not 
till the Kedeemer shall return can any teachers, except the 
Holy Comforter, possess authority equal to that which we 
follow. The mere circumstance that the contradiction to 
the truth which we have so received, is one which comes 
from the invisible rather than the visible world, should 
have no more power to persuade us than the temptations 
to wickedness, which come directly from the Evil One, 
should have beyond those which assail us through mortals 
like ourselves. Thus it is with Christians : but for him 
who is not a Christian in belief, one mighty obstacle to 
faith should seem to be removed when he is persuaded 
that the dead are actually living. If he credit this, and 
imagine that they are speaking, why should he hesitate to 
allow at least the probability of a far clearer, fuller, purer 
and nobler revelation ? One voice from the spiritual world 
should overthrow all the infidelity of the Sadducees of e very- 
generation who say that there is neither angel nor spirit. 

It is even possible to imagine, in a matter so little under- 
stood, that several or all of these elements may be more or 
less combined; human deception, delusion, laws of nature 
still hidden, the influence of evil spirits, and even voices 
from the grave. Let them be thus united, if they may ; 
they can prove nothing and disprove nothing, except as if 
they were separate. As little as the assaults of men, so 
little can the gates of Hades prevail against that pillar and 
ground of truth which Christ has built upon the rock. 

This is the attitude, my brethren^as it seems to me, in 
which Christianity should encounter the attacks of what is 



320 THE MODERN NECROMANCY NO ARGUMENT. 

popularly termed Spiritualism. As at the beginning it 
met the pretensions of the heathen oracles, or of Simon 
the sorcerer, or of the sons of Sceva, or of the Philippian 
damsel with her spirit of divination, so must it meet the 
like pretensions in these latter days. When men trans- 
gress, it is not needful to decide whether they have more 
or less assistance from a world unseen. Enough for us, 
that, whatever it be, it is prohibited by a revelation w T hich 
it cannot annul, or rival, or even imitate. Enough that 
we know that ive have not followed cunningly devised 
fables ; and that the word which we have followed shuts 
the gate against all other messages till the Lord shall come 
in His glory. False Chris ts were to arise, and false pro- 
phets : the one broad and safe command is, " Go ye not 
after them." 

But, manifest as is the duty of Christians towards their 
own faith and their own souls, they have also a duty 
towards their fellow men who doubt or disbelieve the 
Gospel, and grasp at every other thread which can seem to 
them to be let down from heaven. We, whose whole reli- 
gion rests upon a record so full of all which is miraculous, 
ought not to scoff at marvels because they are marvels; 
to condemn with severity all belief which may seem hasty ; 
or to speak of the invisible world as if it existed in the 
Scriptures, and nowhere besides. The seeds of an unbe- 
lief even more fatal than that of Spiritualism might 
thus be scattered. It lias pleased God to leave it to this 
day a question whether the rods of the Egyptian magicians 
were transformed only in appearance, by sleight and skill 
of hand, or in reality by infernal sorceries. We know not 
yet whether the oracle at Delphi guessed or prophesied. 
It is not yet quite decided how far the witch at Endor 
anticipated the actual appearance of Samuel. The same 
veil may hang over similar attempts, to the end of time. 



BURGESS. 



321 



Let it hang over them, if so it be; and let us content our- 
selves with pointing to the rod of Aaron, which swallowed 
up the rods of the magicians; to the true revelations, 
before which the oracles were silent ; and to Him who 
came from the grave in the flesh, and passed into the 
heavens, because He had power to lay down His life, and 
power to take it again. 

Religion suffers loss, if it place itself in a defensive posi- 
tion at the approach of every impostor or disputant, human 
or less or more than human. Strong in its array of truths, 
of wonders, of glories, all of them so indisputably and so 
dazzlingly Divine, it ought to come like its Master, " as 
one having authority," and to demand the full submission 
of reason and of conscience. "YV e are empowered to say, 
" thus saith the Lord of Hosts," when we lift up the 
standard of the Gospel ; and as at the name of Jesus the 
demons of old fled howling to the abyss, so will the spirit 
of delusion, whether it be the spirit of erring, mortal man, 
or a spirit from hell, flee before a simple, lowly, but strong, 
honest, and effectual fervent faith. Oh, may each hearer 
of these words have that faith, which is the gift of God, 
which takes its root in the heart, which lays hold upon the 
Rock of salvation, which justifies the sinner, which over- 
comes the world, and which enables us to cry, in using the 
original words of the Apostle, in every sense which they 
can bear, " 0 Death ! where is thy sting ? 0 Hades ! where 
is thy victory ?" 



41 



Socialism. 



BY REV. FRANCIS VINTON, D.D., 

RECTOR OF GRACE CHURCIT, BROOKLYN. NEW YORK. 



XII. 



SOCIALISM. 

u Love tfi£ Brotherhood." 1 Tetee, ii. 17. 

HIGH above the walls of the Church of Christ, the 
Banner of the Cross is flung to the four winds of 
heaven, inscribed with the legend (which he may read, 
who runs) , " Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away 
the sins of the world ;" while, floating from the four corners 
of the citadel of Christianity, are these commandments of 
the Prince of the Apostles : — " Honour all men. Love the 
Brotherhood : Fear God : Honour the King." They incul- 
cate Loyalty, Piety, Fraternity, and Philanthropy. They 
prescribe the obligations of each man to the human race, 
to his household, to his Maker, to his sovereign. They 
embrace our relationships to the world at large, and to our 
civil rulers, and to the Church Catholic here on earth, and 
to our Heavenly Father. And what more than your rela- 
tionships, in their widest extent to humanity, in their 
endearing social and domestic bonds, in their political 
aspect towards the law and its executive, in their reli- 
gious obligations to the Holy God, can any man desire to 
know? Are you a Philanthropist? Judge yourself by 
this test of philanthropy ; and see whether or not, in deep 
humility, you "honour all men." Are you a Loyalist? 
Examine whether or not you are cultivating a spirit of 
subordination and obedience to those who have the rule 

(325) 



3Z6 



SOCIALISM. 



over you ; for this is to " honour the king." Are you a 
religious man ? Boast not of your piety, until every 
thought, and word, and deed, springs out of a filial " fear 
of God." Are you in the truest sense a Christian? Dare 
not say so, unless a Divinely generated Socialism kindles 
in your heart " love for the Brotherhood." So thoroughly 
do these maxims test our claims and character. 

" Love the Brotherhood." I am, with Divine assistance, 
to enforce this text. The Brotherhood : what is it ? where 
is it ? how shall ice love it ? This is my theme ; and these, 
the topics of my sermon. 

I. What is " the Brotherhood ?" Evidently the Brother- 
hood is something different from " all men." " All men" 
we are to " honour ;" while, says the Apostle, the Brother- 
hood we must " love." And yet, as consanguinity causes 
brotherhood, so, I am free to say, that since God " hath 
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all 
the face of the earth," all men are brethren, by virtue of 
their common filiation to their father Adam. The human 
race, then, is a brotherhood. But still, the Brotherhood is 
something closer, dearer, more exacting of our love : more 
identified with ourselves. " Honour all men." "Love the 
Brotherhood." Brotherhood in the bonds of birth : the 
brotherhood of our homes, the being nourished at our 
mother's breast, the being nurtured at our father's hearth ; 
trained and educated by parental culture, amidst the 
endearments all garnered up in sweet Home — is this " the 
Brotherhood" the Apostle speaks of? It is a brotherhood, 
indeed, so affectionate, so lovely, so associated with every- 
thing which the heart delights in and memory cherishes, 
that he is brutish and unnatural who loves not such a 
brotherhood. 

Yet this is not the Brotherhood of our text. It is but a 
type of the higher, holier, more enduring Brotherhood \ a 



FRANCIS VINTON. 



S27 



brotherhood emanating from a new birth — a common son- 
ship, correlative with the Fatherhood of God. The Brother- 
hood which we are enjoined to love is the fraternity in 
that family, wherein Jesus, the Son of God, is the eldest 
among brethren ; it is a brotherhood of Christ, a brother- 
hood in Christ — a membership of Him, " of whom the 
whole family in heaven and earth is named." The Brother- 
hood, such as this, outgoes, in majesty and glory and im- 
mortality, all terrestrial companionships. It is manifested 
in one body, partakes of one Spirit, is called in one hope, 
obeys one Lord, confesses one faith, receives one baptism, 
owns one God and Father of all, who is " above all, and 
through all, and in them all." 

God is its author, not by virtue of creation, but by re- 
demption. He has taken our nature into union with the 
Godhead, and so, by the incarnation of God the Son, man 
in Christ is become the Son of God ; man in Christ is be- 
gotten of the Father, and we, by the new birth of God the 
Spirit, are made " members of Christ and children of God, 
and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven." 

A Creator makes a being differing from Himself. But 
He who is the Father begets His offspring in His own like- 
ness. It is, then, because we are " made partakers of the 
Divine Nature," because we are begotten in the likeness of 
God, that He is our Father, and we are brethren in Christ 
Jesus ; Christ in us, and we in Him ; He the vine, and we 
the branches ; He the only begotten Son of the Father, we 
begotten in Him, and adopted as Sons of God; He the 
heir, we joint-heirs with Him; He the eldest among 
brethren, we, in Him, the Brotherhood: this is the majestic 
fraternity, the law of whose union is love, whom the 
Apostle excellently styles the Brotherhood. It is the Church 
of the living God. 

II. But where is it ? Where is the Church of God, whose 



328 



SOCIALISM. 



token is brotherhood in the bonds of love ? We read of it 
in the Bible. The Acts of the Apostles proclaim its being 
in the world. There were men, instinct with the life of 
God in their souls, who, loving God supremely, loved their 
neighbour as themselves ; men who believed and consorted 
together, and "had all things common; who sold their 
possessions and goods, and parted them to all men as every 
man had need ; who, continuing daily with one accord in 
the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did 
eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, prais- 
ing God, and having favour with all the people." In view 
of the mercies of God they presented their bodies a living 
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. They deemed 
their devotion a " reasonable service." The poor man and 
the rich man were undistinguished by either wealth or 
poverty, but, recognising the true bonds of redeemed hu- 
manity, were brethren in heart and in deed. The cries of 
the orphan and the sadness of the widow found a response 
in Christian sympathy, relief in Christian beneficence. 
The chains of the slave rested lightly on his limbs, in the 
consciousness that he was the Lord's freeman. Servants 
obeyed, not with eye service, but as servants of God. And 
masters rendered unto servants that which was just and 
equal. In honest humility each honoured all men with a 
philanthropy that gathers within its circling sweep of good- 
will to man, the human race. Each feared God with a 
piety that penetrated the soul, filling its mysterious depths 
with awe and love and joy. Each honoured the king 
with a loyalty subservient. Each loved the Brotherhood 
with affection ardent and sincere. The Bible tells us of 
these wondrous things, when Christians "continued stead- 
fastly in the Apostles' doctrine and the Apostles' fellow- 
ship, in breaking of bread, and in prayers." 

The question, therefore, returns with emphasis, Where 



FRANCIS VINTON. 



3-29 



is the Brotherhood now ? Where is it, in this our day ? 
I answer : In the Divine will, it is where it ever was. 
The Church of God is still man's home ; its fellowship is 
still man's hope. 

Yet I cannot deny that the inquirer after it will find 
himself foiled in his search. He will discover, in its stead, 
a thousand altars, of sects diverse, of worship varying, of 
people marshalled in mutual warfare. Schism has rent 
Christ's body, and torn the seamless garment of the com- 
mon Saviour. The law of Schism is, to divide ; and divi- 
sion ends in disintegration. So that it has come to pass 
that men, in our generation, find themselves alone, with a 
consciousness of individuality intense, and morbidly alive. 
Feeling that " it is not good for man to be alone," they are 
trying to resolve the problem, the problem of life, that stirs 
up all within them — How God has constituted society. 

This is the vast problem of the age we live in. It is not 
a problem to us, brethren, who know that we have received 
the Church of God in its integrity, and the truth of God in 
-purity. It is not a problem to us, whose distinction is, 
that " we earnestly contend for the faith," whole and un- 
defiled, "as it was once delivered to the saints." No well- 
instructed and intelligent churchman is perplexed with the 
question, Where the Brotherhood is to be found. He feels 
it, faintly perhaps and feebly perhaps ; but he feels it as 
a real thing, a life, a principle, a motive, influencing his 
thoughts and shaping his conduct. Everything in his 
worship, everything in the polity of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, witnesses to it. The sacraments seal the 
truth of our Brotherhood in Jesus Christ. 

But think not that other men are so blessed as we are. 
The idea of Brotherhood floats before them. They see the 
beauteous vision, and stretch forth to realize it. We ob- 
serve their earnestness, yea, their anguish, in trying to 
42 



3.S0 



S 0 C I A L I S M. 



secure it. I confess a sympathy with them. I never read 
a speculation on the theme of Socialism without a painful 
condolence of pity. Fain would I take my brother by the 
hand and lead him into the Church of Christ, and set him 
by my side at the foot of the cross of the dying Redeemer 
of the world, to look, believe, and live, pointing him to my 
Father and his Father, to my God and his God. I would 
tell him of all the redemptive acts of Jesus. I would even 
dare to promise him (though all things seem to contradict 
me), that with us, in the pure catholic communion of our 
Church, he shall find peace and joy and Brotherhood. But 
if he turns away and laughs at such pretensions, if he 
goes on constructing his own theories of Communism, Odd- 
Fellowship, Freemasonry, Mormonism, Trade Associations, 
Jesuitism, or even so-called Church Brotherhoods,* and the 
like, I tell him plainly that his fraternities are shams; his 
bonds are selfishness ; his union a pressure from without, 
instead of the attraction of affinity ; and that, when mutual 

* When this lecture -was read in Philadelphia, "Church Brotherhoods" were 
not included in the catalogue of reprobated societies. But, on preaching it 
elsewhere, Church Brotherhoods were named with the rest. The reason for 
suppressing all allusion to them I cannot now remember : but I conjecture the 
reason to have been, that I felt a reluctance to censure, by name, societies into 
which many of my dearest friends were gathering together, and which, I sup- 
posed, the tenor and drift of my discourse opposed. But I was taught my 
mistake directly I had finished my lecture in Philadelphia, being requested to 
make an address at the approaching anniversary as an advocate for Church 
Brotherhoods. The term " The Brotherhood," in the text, seemed to be iden- 
tified, in the minds of some (at least) of the "brothers," with their society. I 
hence discovered the need of either a better argument than I had written, or a 
specific mention of the "Church Brotherhood" societies. And as I was incom- 
petent to a better argument, so I was shut up to the alternative of mentioning 
Church Brotherhoods among the other experiments of Socialism. Church 
Brotherhoods, by their constitutions, exclude from membership young persons 
(below fifteen), and old persons (above fifty years), because they cannot pay 
and contribute their due quota to the treasury. Their weakness and want fail 
to be their plea for "Church Brotherhood" charity. This, I think, is not sound 
Christianity nor good Church charity. 



FRANCIS VINTCJN. 



331 



interest shall cease to press his Societies together, the indi- 
vidual, prompted by his own intense consciousness of self, 
will swell with self-importance and start aw r ay, as with a 
centrifugal force, causing his associations to detonate into as 
many atoms as they have members. 

Brethren ! While I thus speak of self-willed associations, 
I would also confess that Socialism seeks to supply a want 
— a craving want. Some hope to find a Christian Socialism 
in the Church of Rome, through the dreadful death of 
consciousness, where individuality and responsibility are 
swallowed up, submerged in the Confessional, where man 
ceases to be a man, and is only a fragment of the body ; 
where the stupor of the conscience, under the opiates of 
priestcraft, is miscalled peace. 

But others venture on new experiments of Socialism, in 
which the human will is sovereign and not killed. These 
claim to have formed a Brotherhood. These boast of their 
philanthropy. These evince an ardour and a purpose, that 
engage the fancy, and attract the hopes of the panting 
multitude. They nourish the feeble ; they tend the sick ; 
they bury the dead with ostentatious demonstrations of 
respect ; they support the widows, and educate the orphans 
of their fellows. They join themselves in trade-unions, 
and combine their strength in strikes for wages. The poor 
man sees all this, wonders and acquiesces. " Perhaps this 
is the Brotherhood with whom I should enrol my name," 
he says ; " this is the Church for me." And so he buys a 
portion in man's Church, and learns to despise the Church 
of the Living God. 

Yes ! He buys into the concern, for the profit which is 
promised — then turns and tells you, " It is a Brotherhood!" 
A mutual insurance company, excluding all who cannot pay 
aad all whose payment would not refund the cost of their 
support, proclaims itself a Brotherhood, and takes profanely 



332 



SOCIALISM. 



on its lips the sacred names of mercy, truth, and love ; 
falsifying each in turn. And yet men call this The Brother- 
hood, which they must cherish — which they commend to 
your regard and reverence — which they array against the 
Church of Christ! But the humanity of Socialism has no 
divinity in it. It is of the earth, earthy. It is the band- 
ing of men together, against the ills of life, "without God, 
without Christ, without hope in the world." It battles to 
the grave — and there it halts. Its heathenism, though 
disguised in some of the beauteous robes of Christianity, 
can go no further than the grave. There, at that dark 
portal, it stops and trembles. Its vaunted Brotherhood is 
finished at the tomb. " It says unto corruption, Thou art 
my father; to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister." 
But can you wonder that the anxious longings for a Brother- 
hood should suggest these experiments of Socialism ? Is it 
a marvel that men who toil for their daily bread, and earn 
no more than " the crumbs that fall from the rich man's 
table" — that men who look abroad in vain for sympathy — 
who feel the woes and wants of their condition, as a cold 
hand upon their hearts, chilling their affections — should 
grasp the weapon (and wield it too) that defends their 
weakness, and procures them hope ? Is it strange that the 
instincts of self-preservation, the sentiments of fellowship, 
the strong, irrepressible, invincible demands of justice 
should endeavour to command the tribute of your respect, 
and the recognition of their human rights? I look upon 
every combination of the trades as a protest against the 
covetousness of Capital. I look upon every society, pro- 
posing to ameliorate the sufferings of poverty and sickness 
and sorrow, as a protest against the lukewarmness of 
Christians. I look upon the Social experiments of every 
sort, that, in our age, are venturing to form Brotherhoods, 
as the voices of nature and the voice of God, protesting 



FRANCIS VINTON. 



333 



against the Church. All these experiments are expedients 
for the realization of the Brotherhood which Christ orga- 
nized and fixed, in the world, for man. 

The philosopher has torn the gown of the theologian 
from him, and claims to be the better interpreter of the 
will of God. He snatches the Bible from the pulpit to 
preach fraternity, while the dogmatizing polemic is assert- 
ing systems of theology that divide mankind asunder. 
The philosopher perverts the word of Inspiration to give 
an aspect of divinity to Socialism ; while the divine him- 
self is perverting Scripture to reduce religion to a carnal 
philosophy, and deprave the Church to a school for dialec- 
tic disputation. That text which tells us how primitive 
Christians sold their goods, and had all things common, is 
pressed into the service of a selfish Socialism : ignoring 
the rest of that same text, which tells us that primitive 
Christians " parted their goods to all men, as every man had 
need." And on the other hand, those Scriptures which 
record the love of Christ, are treated as sweet doctrines of 
a beautiful religion, while the duties which Christ's love 
commands, and Christ's example demonstrates for our obe- 
dience and imitation, are neglected in the teaching of His 
ministers. 

The Church has suffered long enough in the stiff coils 
of these skeleton systems of dry theology — these barren 
inductions of false philosophy. The time is come to be at 
work. The time is come to look after men's bodies as well 
as souls — to deal with man's nature as God made it — to 
imitate the Saviour in curing distempers, and healing dis- 
eases, and giving liberty to the captive, and visiting the 
prison-houses of them that are bound. The time is come 
when the pride of place and power is to be rebuked, and 
the wages of the hireling, kept back by fraud, must be 
disgorged by the monster, Covetousness. If the true 



3:4 



SOCIALISM. 



Christian Brotherhood be not evinced in acts of charity for 
Christ's sake, a brotherhood of Socialism, that counterfeits 
Christianity, will supersede it in men's affections and men's 
faith. It will utterly blind the eyes of the multitude who 
follow their infidel leaders in the confederacy of Antichrist 
against the Church. Social organizations, working at first 
beside the Church, will at last oppose the Church. Already 
in the midst of us are societies, offering pantheistic wor- 
ship, pretending to philanthropic ethics ; and in training 
for any enterprise, whether against the state, the family, 
or the Church. Men are nourishing the viper in their bosom. 
But when the Church shall arise and shine — when the 
works of charit) 7 , and the tears of sympathy, and the self- 
sacrificing endeavours of a heart in earnest shall manifest 
our faith in the common Redeemer of all mankind, then 
will Socialisms have no work to do, no tears to shed, no 
efforts to make, no subjects to care for, no theory to demon- 
strate. The problem, " How God has constituted Society," 
shall be demonstrated. Men shall discover where the 
Brotherhood is to be sought for, and where it shall be 
found ; even in the one Holy City of our God, which hath 
foundations whose walls are Salvation and whose gates 
Praise. God and the Lamb are the light thereof. 

III. And hence we learn, finally, How we must love the 
Brotherhood. 

My brethren, I have avoided, as much as possible, all 
discussion of the political and metaphysical theories of 
Socialism, in order to grasp the one idea of every social 
system, viz. that of Brotherhood. How then shall the 
Christian love the Brotherhood ? How manifest his love to 
the brethren ? 

1. In the first place, he must love sincerely. And to love 
sincerely, he must pray sincerely for all estates and condi- 
tions of men. Remembering them before Him who made, 



FRANCIS VINTON. 



385 



redeemed, and loves them. Remembering them before 
Him who will not be mocked and cannot be deceived, unto 
whom all hearts are open, and all desires known, you will 
bear away from the mercy seat that unction from the Holy 
One, which will warm your heart with the love of Christ. 
Prayer, then, is the foremost means of grace, whereby to 
love the Brotherhood. He that loveth God will love his 
brother also. 

2. And next, you must begin to exercise your love for 
your own kinsmen after the flesh, conquering the spirit of 
contention that disturbs the fireside of your homes. And 
you must learn to bear and forbear with your brethren of 
the same household. 

3. And, enlarging the compass of your expanding heart, 
you must cease to strive with brethren of the same house- 
hold of faith; you must think kindly of other Christians, 
who, from education or from self-will, are departed from the 
unity of the Body and live in Schism. Then, like the ex- 
tending circuit of the ripple that a stone makes when cast 
upon the waters, your sympathies shall widen their 
diameter. till the circumference of your love shall embrace 
the world. The Holy reform must commence in each Chris- 
tian heart. The Spirit of God and of Christ must be its 
Author and its Finisher. 

4. Besides this internal sanctification, the Christian must 
look to the example of his Master, and imitate the pattern 
of those primitive disciples who followed Him most closely. 

5. And let me add that it would be wise to take counsel 
from the enemy, on the principle that " the children of this 
world are wiser in their generation than the children of 
light." Churchmen, therefore, must assert their Brother- 
hood, till, like living epistles, they are known and read of 
all men. Is the fellowship of Socialism witnessed in tend- 
ing the sick ? Let communicants be ready at the call of 



336 



SOCIALISM. 



their rector to watch and pray by the bedside of a brother, 
and in the hovels of the outcast. Does Socialism erect its 
hospitals, provide its schools, establish its funds for widows 
and orphans ? Let the alms of the church be copious and 
overflowing, instead of being stinted in their supply, in 
order that from this source, and sanctified as gifts from off 
God's altar, they may suffice for schools and hospitals and 
asylums. Does Socialism display its fellowship in a 
numerous train of attendants upon funerals ? Let church- 
men emulate each other in paying the last rites at the ob- 
sequies of their brethren. And in the multitudinous calls 
for charity, let each be "a cheerful giver," counting his 
gains as the Lord's usury, esteeming himself as the Lord's 
steward. If the earnestness and the wisdom of Socialists 
be transplanted into the Church, our Christian Socialism 
shall flourish with blossoms of beauty and of fragrance, 
till they mature into the luscious fruit of brotherly love, 
the celestial taste of which shall evince that they have 
grown in the Paradise of God. 

Brethren in Christ ! love the Brotherhood ! prove your 
faith by love ! show your love by works ! what I have 
feebly sketched exemplify! then shall opponent fellow- 
ships cease, and men shall say of us, " Surely God is with 
you of a truth." 



/ 



BY REV. A. H. VINTON, D.D. 

RECTOR OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH; BOSTON, MASS. 



XIII. 



SCIENCE AND KEVELATION. 

The entrance of thy word giveth light. Ps. cxix. 130. 

THE ascendancy of man over other ranks of creatures 
seems to consist, not so much in what he has done 
more than they, as in what he may be which they cannot. 
His superiority lies not in his past so much as in his future ; 
not in his deeds, but in his capacity to do more and better. 
That capacity is simply the capacity to be educated. Other 
animated creatures are impulsive; he is reflective. Inani- 
mate things are subject to organic laws; he can conform 
himself to an ideal standard. Other creatures obey the 
law within them ; he can reduce all impulses and instincts 
to the sovereignty of thought, and bend his consenting 
nature to an aim that lies outside of him. Other things 
grow ; man improves. This peculiarity, while it denotes 
his superior rank, reveals, by the same token, his ineffable 
destiny. For, since rational principles are infinite, he may 
pursue them till he shall rise so high and range so far as 
to outreach our present conceptions of being. Drawn in 
his career of improvement towards the great central reason, 
to which, as to the inner loadstone, the universe gravitates, 
we can see him moving at a rate of constant acceleration, 
drawn at each advance with a more powerful attraction, 
vibrating less and rushing faster, until, by the magnetic 
affinity, he fastens himself for ever to God. 

(339) 



840 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



I have said that this capacity of being educated has a 
twofold significance. It is at once the token of man's su- 
premacy and the pledge of his immortality. There has 
never, perhaps, been a period in history in which education, 
as a means of supremacy over nature, has been so highly 
esteemed as in this age. 

But if you scan the methods and the ends of our com- 
mon education, you will find that the capacity of being 
educated, as a pledge of mans immortality, is studiously 
ignored. The public teaching of this generation belongs to 
a sensual, not to a spiritual system. Physical laws are 
explored with the most brilliant results of generalization. 
The earth, the ocean, the air draw near with a sort of 
reverence, and lay their oblations at the feet of man's en- 
throned reason. Nature, in her telescopic vastness, unveils 
the bosom of her firmament to the starry eye of our astro- 
nomy, yields up her microscopic organs to the dissection 
of anatomy and geology, and betrays her hidden functions 
and affinities to the tests of chemistry. In this fruitful 
Eden of physical knowledge, the mind of the age revels 
and feasts itself to repletion. But in that vaster realm of 
metaphysics, by which I mean truths higher than physical, 
the general mind is more untrained. It is more an age of 
science than of principles and Divine philosophy; of ethics 
more than of piety ; of things seen more than of truths 
felt. We are taught vastly more of man's relation to na- 
ture than of his relationship to God. The capacities of 
man prove that there must be a higher education for him 
than this love of nature, and a brighter light than the 
coruscations of science. For he has faculties nobler than 
the perceptive. He has the power of bringing himself into 
contact with eternal principles, of amalgamating his mind 
by reflection with Divine truth. 

He has an eye that does not blench at the living glory 



A. II. VINTON. 



841 



which floods the field of his immortality. That instruction 
which meets these higher capacities of man, is knowledge 
by w r ay of eminence. It is education in its large and true 
sense. These thoughts, not new to you, have come back 
to my own mind with fresh pow r er as I have revolved the 
subject assigned me for this lecture, viz., the relation of 
science to revealed religion. That relation has justly been 
regarded as one of subordination. Science has been fami- 
liarly called the handmaid of religion. It were only well 
if she would be contented to occupy that position. But 
no person can contemplate the claims of modern Science 
and not be struck with its assumption of superiority, a 
certain magisterial air, as if it had a sort of pre-emption 
claim to truth, as if its conclusions were not to be disturbed 
by any other truth known or unknown. Its conclusions 
are edicts. Its teaching is a royal proclamation. If it 
notices revealed truth in any way, it is only by turning its 
lantern towards the Bible just long enough to reveal a 
point of difficulty, and then stirring up the dust of doubt 
at every step, passes on relentlessly, as if it were under no 
obligation to relieve the Word of God of the odium it had 
cast about it. 

It is this assumed superiority of Science over Revelation, 
which has done much to weaken the faith of many in our 
day. Sometimes Infidelity has levelled against the Bible 
the contradictions of history; sometimes the speculations 
of pure reasoning ; but in our day it brings forth the 
objections of Materialism, and screens itself with scientific 
theory. I need not remind you how plausible and capti- 
vating some of these theories are. It is enough to say 
that their assaults upon Eevelation are point blank. They 
are not content with simply maiming our faith in the Bible 
by lopping off some of its truths. They aim at the very 
heart of Revelation as a system of truth, so that if the 



342 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



Science be true, the Bible is false, and all false. The rela- 
tion of Science to Revelation then, in our day, would seem 
to be a relation of hostility. The position of one towards 
the other is a position of antagonism. I do not forget how 
often the discoveries of Science have coincided with the 
statements of the Bible. The catalogue is a long one of 
instances in which objections started by scientific explorers 
against the history of the Bible, have been confuted by 
further explorations. Many a side light of evidence for 
the Scriptures has glanced from the investigations of men 
who had no intention to corroborate the Word of God. 

The frauds of the Hindoo astronomy have given a left- 
handed authority to the chronology of the Scriptures. 
Geology attests the recent origin of the human race. The 
Egyptian hieroglyphics have confirmed the Exodus. Nine- 
veh has risen from the grave to illustrate the book of 
Daniel. The Pagan oracles have betrayed to the tests of 
Bishop Horsley their Israelitish pedigree. The tradition 
of the nations attests the Deluge. The best generalization 
of the races of men conforms to the three branches of the 
stock of Noah ; and the scientific classification of the 
several languages of the world runs back into an amazing 
simplicity, and almost resolves the diversity into three 
primary forms; while the still more radical analysis of 
Kraitser traces all forms of language to their organic source, 
illustrates the Tower of Babel, and makes the confusion 
of tongues one of the most conceivable phenomena of 
social life. 

So much has scientific discovery done to elucidate the 
historic past of the Bible, and it has not left the Bible 
future wholly untouched; for the scientific theories of 
human progress shadow forth a millennium, and the lost 
Pleiad foreshows the end of time and the conflagration of 
the world. These coincidences between science and the 



A. H. VINTON. 



34:3 



Bible may sometimes serve to reassure the conviction of 
the believers in Revelation, and to pluck out particular ob- 
jections from the mouths of cavillers. 

Yet, after all, both faith and unbelief are vitalized not 
in the brain but in the heart of hearts, and are fed re- 
spectively from the purity or the corruptions of the moral 
nature. And hence it happens that though the scepticism 
of Science be often baffled, though its contradictions to 
Scripture be often refuted, its speculations shown to be 
fallacious by experiment, and its conclusions falsified by its 
own maturer knowledge, still it works on unperturbed by 
any discomfiture, dogmatizes its conclusions with the same 
quiet air of superiority, speculates as coldly, contradicts as 
boldly as if its whole history had been a refutation of the 
Bible. Some illustrations of this characteristic may occur 
as we proceed. Meanwhile we cannot but recollect the 
almost supercilious way in which the devotees of Science 
are apt, when the antagonisms between their conclusions 
and the narrative of the Bible are pointed out, to content 
all scruples by saying the Bible was not meant to teach 
the truths of natural science. And this easy plea has too 
often been borrowed into the mouths of Christians, as if it 
could extenuate the heresies of scientific speculation, as 
if there were any other way of determining what the Bible 
was meant to teach than bv ascertaining what it does in 
fact teach. What though we learn from Science that it is 
the earth and not the sun which revolves, is the miracle of 
Joshua less imposing or true ? Because the history describes 
the event as the standing still of the sun, does this language 
betray an ignorance of astronomy any more than when we 
describe him as rising and setting? Yet how often is this 
sample instance adduced to justify a contempt of the Scrip- 
tural narrative in analogous cases ! 

In contemplating this very striking characteristic of 



341 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



modern Science, this cool assurance with which the Bible 
is made to take a second-rate position in every seeming 
difference between them, one can hardly help holding up to 
this eagle-eyed Science the text of the Psalmist, " the en- 
trance of thy word giveth light," to impress the lesson it 
so much needs to learn, the first lesson of true wisdom, viz. 
modesty. One can hardly help asking in what consists the 
superiority of its claims to lord it thus over the Bible. 
Does its light shine further and clearer ? Is its philosophy 
broader ? Are its principles of reasoning more certain, and 
its results more sure? Does it educate the better part of 
man? the whole man for his better life, for his whole life? 
If not, it has no claim to the precedency it arrogates. If 
not, it is not the light of man. If not, no Christian should 
feel his faith disturbed by any invasion upon it which 
Science has yet made, or threatens to make. Let my follow- 
ing remarks be aimed at adjusting these rival claims, and 
vindicating the superiority of that Revelation, which, as it 
comes to us whole, cannot be disintegrated by us without 
peril to every part of the Bible. 

Let the first point of examination be of the comparative 
certainty of Science and Revelation, its conclusions, and 
its method of reaching them. If the Bible be taunted 
with its sects and divisions of believers, its obscurities and 
enigmas, let us see if any of our human systems of know- 
ledge relieve this distraction. Consider the necessary 
sources of that knowledge. We receive it all from obser- 
vation — our own or other men's. If it be our own, we 
lean upon a single mind, limited in its powers, if not 
warped and crooked, whose experience, shut into the 
narrow track of one man's life, is almost contemptibly 
partial, and w T hose wisdom is apt to be in inverse propor- 
tion to the confidence of its conclusions. When the king 
of Siam refused to believe that water could become solid, 



A. H. VINTON. 



345 



he betrayed only the bigoted ignorance of experimental 
knowledge, for there is no such bigot as the mere experi- 
mentalist; or if the experience be that of a philosophic 
mind — clear, enlarged, logical — it is still the experience of 
only one observer out of 1,04)0,000,000. The fixed condi- 
tion of the universe is, that art is long and life is short. 
Knowledge is an abyss whose shores stretch into the view- 
less infinitude, and whose foundations are so deep that its 
dark waters are to us bottomless. But suppose the learner 
to. mount higher. He embraces, in a bird's-eye view, the 
discoveries of other generations, the reflections of other 
men, the principles of General Science. Has he reached 
the pitch of assurance ? He has indeed larger material for 
judgment; but the most remarkable effect of his enlarged 
knowledge will be, that his judgment will be ten times 
more cautious in its processes, and ten times less confident 
in its decisions. He learns, at last, the wisdom of doubt- 
ing, and the folly of expecting a perfect knowledge of any- 
thing. No matter what the department of knowledge, 
where springs anything like certainty? Let it be History. 
History is but a lamplight, shining always with a flicker; 
disclosing a part, and concealing the rest; touching the 
topmost events with a garish light, and sinking into 
shadows the gentler neutral tints of life and manners 
which make the true complexion of the times. History 
sees only in perspective. She distorts, because she does not 
disclose the relations of events, nor the symmetry and pro- 
portion of life. She shines again from different stand- 
points. Even contemporaneous histories differ beyond 
reconciliation, and their unanimous statements are some- 
times corrected by long subsequent discoveries. Let the 
subject be ethics, noblest and best, who shall guide us to 
certainty without a Divine teacher ? Shall it be Plato or 
Aristotle, Maehiavelli or the Schoolmen, or Hobbes, or 
44 



.346 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



Butler, or Paley, or Bentham, or Owen ? Shall we learn 
our moral rule of life from the outward or the inward, 
from nature or ourselves ; from expediency or conscience ? 
Shall we infer what we ought to do from what we are and 
are to be, or begin at the oth#r end of the line, and learn 
what we are by seeing what we w T ere made to do? Shall 
we determine morality from its effects, or risk the conse- 
quences because the morality is abstractly good ? Let who 
will answer these questions; if he answer them from 
human oracles, he shall forthwith encounter a contradic- 
tion of equal authority, and find the thinking world rent 
and riddled into sects who hold their moral theories so 
profoundly that they cannot always bring them into exer- 
cise between each other. 

Next, let the great theme be Political Science, the theory 
of government. Is there a fixed form of perfection for the 
state ? Is it best for all times, all conditions, all peoples ? 
Which best conserves the right, and which most advances 
the prosperity of a nation? Is the end that is lost under 
any given form of government more or less important than 
the end gained? No man can resolve these questions 
truly without a mind to contract itself to the minutest 
details, dilate itself to the broadest generalization, and 
protrude itself with prophetic ken into the unwritten 
future. He must detect affinities underneath differences, 
and discriminate the real unlikeness between things that 
seem the same. He must know the constitution of men, 
and the constitution of the world ; the countless agencies 
that have made them what they are, and the not less 
countless influences that are shaping them hourly into what 
they shall become. The single men who are competent to 
one-half of this are more rare than whole generations of 
inferior men. The grand problem of government w^ill not 
be solved till the world's history is complete, and he who 



A. II. VINTON. 



347 



shall solve it must be a world-birth, and be endowed with 
a world of wisdom. Meanwhile the lesser men are tugging 
at the great question which they are not competent to lift, 
and he who should ask for the truth of Political Science 
turns away perplexed and Baffled by mere speculation. 

If from the height of this great theme we descend to the 
narrower range of Law — from law making to law interpret- 
ing — do we see clearer for being nearer ? While precedent 
contradicts precedent, opinion thwarts opinion, the worse 
appears the better reason ; the letter is made to neutralize 
the spirit, and plausibility carries it over honesty. This 
noble science, in its principles and design only next to reli- 
gion, becomes in its application most irreligious. As a 
theory, it towers away into the skies as if it emulated 
Divinity, and Heaven crowns its peak with its own glorious 
light. Yet, as it comes near to men, its base is wrapped in 
dim and disastrous fog. 

So much for the certainty of those sciences — ethical, 
political, and judicial — which have, one or the other, or all 
together, assumed the precedence of Kevelation. But these 
are sciences of probability. Let us turn to those which 
claim a more solid basis and exacter processes, the sciences 
called Inductive. It is the boast of these that they are 
progressive ; and, if movement be progress, they are rightly 
named. For the history of Astronomy shows how men may 
rest for ages in a theory which another generation shall 
explode. Now it shall be a Ptolemy who shall wield the 
empire of scientific opinions, and then Copernicus shall 
bring a new dynasty to the throne. One theory shall 
explain the phenomena of the world, except a few. Ano- 
ther supplants it, because it seems to satisfy those few. 
The beautiful hypothesis of the nebulae illustrates the 
whole plan of creation, unless some unlucky telescope 
pierces and dissects them, and proves that the only nebula 



348 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



is the hypothesis itself. So that splendid as the facts of 
Astronomy are, they are hardly more imposing for the phe- 
nomena they explain than for the wonders they leave to be 
guessed at, and the whole firmament becomes a celestial 
arena, in which men's minds meet and speculate in the 
battle of opinions. Descending from the sky to the earth, 
we study the minuter organism of the world uncertain 
still. 

Chemistry discovers a new simple suostance, and she 
changes her theory of organizations, and with it her whole 
nomenclature. Medicine shifts its methods and systems 
like the fashions. Sthenic and asthenic divide the field 
and the fees. The humours and the nerves, each claims a 
theory. Pathology, with its rapid strides of progress, so 
far distances therapeutics as to leave the cure of diseases 
standing back at the period of Hippocrates. Once more 
descending from the earth, beneath the earth we reach the 
science of Geology, sublime in its depth as Astronomy in 
its height. Wrapped up in its embalmed shroud of mys- 
tery we find the earth's corpse, the dead spirit of antiquity 
with the world for its tomb. It unbosoms its fossil history 
as if the eternal Past were crystallized before our eyes ; and 
scientific men would persuade us that the earth's history is 
only this side of eternal. No science has been so progres- 
sive as this ; and there is hardly one besides which fills the 
mind with such prolific suggestions of knowledge. Yet 
even here there is no certainty. From the deep chambers 
of the earth we hear the clash of opinions and the murmurs 
of dissatisfied theory. How and by what were the pheno- 
mena of Geology wrought ? Whether by water, or by fire, 
or by both ? whether in succession, or simultaneously ? 
whether at a fixed rate of power, or a decreasing ? whether 
by steady progress, or by volcanic starts and spasms, opi- 
nions have not been agreed. With all its magnificence of 



A. H. VINTON. 



349 



subterranean light, we wait upon Geology as doubtful peti- 
tioners for knowledge. Yet Geology is, no doubt, the 
favourite science of the times, and the one which strikes in 
severest collision against the statements of the Bible. Let 
us dwell, then, a moment longer upon those special grounds 
on which Geology rests her strongest objections to Scrip- 
ture. Those objections are levelled mainly, in our day, 
against the Mosaic account of the creation. Now, while I 
would not deny that, by the laws of language and the 
usage of the Hebrew tongue, the first chapter of Genesis 
will admit of an interpretation which shall make the word 
" day" to signify a period of indefinite length, and so bring 
the Scripture into approximation to Science, by allowing a 
much greater antiquity to the creation of the earth, yet 
the exactions of Geology are so minute and so stringent as 
to provoke a retaliatory criticism. Is it quite plain, then, 
that Geology is all right and the old interpretation of the 
Bible all wrong ? Do the principles of inductive reasoning 
so corroborate the claims of Geology as to entitle it to con- 
tradict the first chapter of Genesis ? Let us see. The cre- 
ation of the world is explained by Geology thus : The earth 
was originally a huge mass of nebulous matter floating in 
space. It parts with a portion of its caloric and becomes 
more and more consolidated, until its surface is cooled into 
a rocky crust, called, by the older geologists, the primitive 
or granitic formation, and enclosing, as its interior, a mass 
of incandescent matter in a state of fusion ; from this pri- 
mordial granite all the solid matter of the earth we tread 
on was subsequently derived. Dissolved by rains, peeled 
off by frosts, and triturated by currents, the minute particles, 
thus separated from the parent rock, have become again 
compacted into what are called the sedimentary formations. 
This process is supposed to be closely analogous to that by 
which deltas are formed at the mouths of great rivers, and 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



the delta is therefore the type of this whole class. This is 
a very summary view of the organic constitution of our 
globe according to the approved Geology. Now assuming 
this explanation to be true, and assuming that the great 
changes of the earth have always proceeded at the same 
rate of progress as we see them to be now going on, then 
a very simple arithmetic shows, beyond all peraclventure, 
that the age of our earth must very far transcend the period 
assigned it in the Scriptures. The Scriptures therefore are 
discredited unless we find for them some new interpretation. 
Now, while I repeat that a different interpretation may be 
both admissible and best, yet is there anything in this 
theory of Geology to make it necessary ? 

The first peculiarity that strikes us in this theory is, that 
its premises are not only unproved, but, so far as our present 
knowledge goes, they are disproved. Its first fact is a mere 
guess, which has been contradicted by experience. La 
Place himself never dared to call his theory of the nebula? 
anything more than an hypothesis ; and that which, before 
the construction of Lord Kosse's telescope, was a plausible 
conjecture, has been shown by that instrument to be a pre- 
sumptive fallacy ; so that this theory, so comprehensive 
and so imposing, rests upon a false fact. But even if its 
foundation were more true, what shall we say of its details? 
If the original crust of the earth was granitic, and all the 
sedimentary formations derived from it, how do we explain 
the immense production of limestone and of rock-salt, 
whose elements are not contained in granite ? If the inte- 
rior of the globe be a mass of liquid incandescent matter, 
how can we account for volcanoes, since, instead of expand- 
ing, its tendency w T ould be to a constant contraction by 
cooling? And if deltas are to furnish the type of sedi- 
mentary formations, how is it that those formations grow 
gradually thinner towards their edges, contrary to the 



A. II. VINTON. 



£51 



common forms and habits of the delta, which always rises 
like a wall from the bottom of the sea, thickest at the 
margin ? What reliance, moreover, are we to place upon 
the principle, that nature, in all these formative operations, 
has followed a uniform rate of movement, when it were far 
more scientific to argue from the known analogy of forces, 
which are always fiercest at their first combination, that 
the rate of progress would be constantly decreasing ? Now, 
not to insist upon objections touching the supposed cooling 
of a nebula, not to dwell upon certain mechanical difficul- 
ties touching the supposition of an internal liquid fire, are 
not those already named enough to vitiate — yea, quite 
invalidate — the whole theory ? Beginning with a fallacy, 
proceeding by assumptions which are irreconcileable with 
known geological facts, can it conduct the inquirer to any- 
thing like an authoritative conclusion ? 

And mark again the whole character of the reasoning 
involved in this explanation. Geology professes to be a 
science of Induction. The grand worth and power of its 
objections to the Bible consists in its claims to that exact- 
ness which belongs to Inductive reasoning. But at what 
single point in this whole theory does the principle of 
Induction crop out ? Induction deals only with facts ; with 
present and subsisting facts. It arranges them, classifies 
them, and eliminates the general principle which binds 
them together. But, whether in the single phenomenon 
or in the general law which pervades the group, the single 
aim of Induction is a present fact. The phenomenon is a 
fact, and the general law is not less a fact. Induction may 
show us convincingly, beautifully, the order and plan of the 
existing universe. But when Science attempts to fathom 
the modes and agencies of the past, it leaps the track of 
Induction as wildly and fatally as if it should undertake to 
forecast and prophesy the world's whole future. When it 



352 



S C I E N C E AND REVELAT10 N. 



infers the past from the present, it is not Induction ; it is 
Deduction : a conjectural sort of reasoning which forfeits 
the whole character of exactness. And when, besides, it 
begins with a mere assumption of fact, and hangs its argu- 
ment on this single loop, the argument itself is not reason- 
ing ; it is speculation : the theory is transformed into a 
whole unmitigated hypothesis, illustrating the adage that 
if we begin with an if we may end as we please. 

But I have said enough, I trust, to illustrate the un- 
certainty that clings about the methods and conclusions of 
Science, verifying the sarcasm of the poet, that " Science is 
but an exchange of ignorance for that which is another 
kind of ignorance." Carry your gaze where you will, and 
you find this infection and rottenness in it all. A science 
to be certain must not be progressive ; that is, it must not 
be human. It must be divinely taught, and the truths it 
teaches must not be such as are useful to one set of men in 
one stage of life, one condition of the world, but touching 
the interests of all men in every age, for their whole 
existence. 

Look to revealed truth, and find these elements of cer- 
tainty there. There is certainty in the quality of the 
knowledge. The Teacher is one who knows ; His know- 
ledge is within Himself, and that which He reveals is the 
counsel of His own mind, the plans of His own wisdom, 
the decrees of His own will. 

There is certainty in the method of knowing. We have 
a Teacher whom w T e are not afraid to trust, and we learn 
not by discovery or by speculation, but by faith. We 
drink in instruction implicitly. The truths revealed are so 
far above our explorations that no pride of reason can vault 
up to the platform of the Bible. We are sure, because we 
can never know enough to doubt, and all men stand to- 
gether on one footing of evidence — " Thus saith the Lord." 



A. K. VINTON. 



353 



This Science is not progressive, for we can learn no more 
if we would; nor fluctuating, because not lodged in human 
opinion but the Divine mind. The effect of this two-fold 
certainty is signal and delightful. As nothing is more cor- 
roding than a doubt on a subject in which we are enough 
interested to be anxious, so there is no state of mind so 
replete w T ith satisfaction as the assurance of knowledge. 
The affinity of the mind for truth is met and satisfied. 
The truth itself has become a part of our consciousness 
and our inward life, and bestows such repose as approaches 
more nearly than anything else the mind's perfected bliss. 
There will be more of it in heaven, but on earth it has 
been divinely provided that the assurance of faith shall be 
the substitute for the certainty of heaven, and the joy of 
that faith the antepast of heaven's finished bliss. 

From this grand defect of human Science, in its essential 
lack of certainty, let us pass, to consider more briefly 
another, viz. the want of breadth and comprehension in its 
principles. It is true, indeed, that the proper definition of 
Science is a system of general principles. And it is true 
that scientific men understand the difference between a man 
of rules and a man of principles. The man of rules is an 
artisan, the man of principles is an artist. The former is 
an empiric, the latter a philosopher. One declares the 
method, the other the reasons of the method. One points 
the telescope, the other discovers the solar system and in- 
vents the parallax. One may be very knowing, the other 
is wise. That one may be shrewd, this one is great. The 
best achievements of the human intellect lie in happy 
generalizations. It was the power to generalize which gave 
the prophetic eye to Newton, to Burke, to Washington, 
each in his sphere applying the master-key of a general 
principle to unlock the dark storehouse of future and unat- 
tempted things. This forecasting knowledge, although so 

45 



354 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



rare among men, as to be deemed almost a lucky guest, 
shows at least how a great mind soars after the universal, 
and how the mind should be disciplined in order to become 
great. Now while it is true that each separate science 
aims to eliminate the general laws which govern it, yet 
each one insulated from the rest, no one branch of Science 
is responsible for its conclusions to any other branch, and 
hence results an independency, and sometimes an oppo- 
sition, which quite forbids anything like a universal system. 
What is wanting is a Science of sciences, a philosophy large 
enough to embrace and harmonize them all, and to bring 
the results of discovery into some simple form, which shall 
be the philosophy of the universe. This is the grandeur 
of the Bible. Considered merely as knowledge, it has 
above all others the capacity of universality. All its truths 
are world-wide. If it be law, how does it distil and con- 
dense all forms of moral obligation into the grand essential 
duty of love to God and our neighbour, the duty of all men 
in all time, in both worlds ! If it be government and 
polity, how does it dispel the cloud that envelopes the do- 
minion of the world, and reveal the Great White Throne of 
Him whose right it is to reign ! How it teaches the 
grandest philosopher in the system of final causes ! How 
it impresses us w T ith the truth that all things are made for 
God ! How it explains the changes of dynasties, the wreck 
of empires, the turning and overturning of the nations, 
showing that He sitteth between the cherubim, be the 
people never so unquiet, making these commotions one and 
all the permitted results of His sovereignty, permitted in 
order to illustrate and to usher in the covenanted, media- 
torial reign of the Son of God ! 

Even if the subject be the motions of the physical uni- 
verse, how admirably the Bible connects the Divine will 
with the changes of matter, and subordinates the material 



A. II. VINTON. 



355 



to its due place of subserving the spiritual ! This is what 
experimental Science of itself either cannot or will not do. 
It ignores the whole doctrine of final causes. Its induction 
resolves all things into men, mechanism, and law, recog- 
nises no oversight of nature, no changes of matter but 
such as are caused by mechanical necessity, and hence 
denies all miracles, and hence repudiates a special Provi- 
dence. Experimental Science maintains that it cannot, 
consistently with the principles of Induction, go beyond 
simple phenomena, and has no right to infer a moral plan 
of the universe, because it cannot be weighed in balances 
or tested with acids. It is such a confession of narrow- 
ness and partiality, as makes it unnecessary for us to 
enlarge upon it in the way of proof. But it is this refusal to 
look for moral results, which renders physical science essen- 
tially atheistic : and this constitutes the third great defect. 
In consistency with the same principle on which experi- 
mental Science rejects the doctrine of final causes, it may 
deny a first cause. To the experimentalist, the world 
stands out as mere inert bulk. In examining and dissecting 
it, his mind acts mechanically, led or dragged on by one 
new fact or law after another, until, at the last-discovered 
fact or law, it halts. This is the terminus of Induction. 
Its last result is a law, never a person ; an effect, not a 
cause. It can go no further. It can see no further. If he 
should reach forward one more step, to infer the unseen 
cause from the seen effect, that step must be taken in the 
dark. Induction holds him for ever, poised on one foot, 
upon the brink of that precipice which separates the actual 
and the possible. To recognise an Invisible Director of the 
world, is to reverse the processes of experimental Science. 
For the chief maxim of Science is to receive truth only on 
tangible evidence. She brings forth her principles in tan- 
gible form. Her rule is " handle me and see." She sets the 



356 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



inquirer down before the mighty machinery of the world, 
and when he grows bewildered and dizzy with amazement, 
she takes him to the upper platform, and shows him the one 
great wheel that moves the complicated works, and bids him 
then be satisfied. This is her ultimate stand-point. She 
tells no more, for she can see no more, and Science walks 
by sight. If he asks for a First Cause, grander and higher 
than this grand second cause, he asks unscientifically. 
The question springs from some Divine instinct of religion 
which Induction does not recognise, and must be answered 
by some lore which the wisdom of this world never taught. 

If Science taught religion even in its elementary form, 
we should still have been blessed with a pious Newton, but 
should never have heard of an infidel La Place. 

But even when Science, either physical or moral, in the 
person of some of its followers, acknowledges the fact of a 
Deity, see with what a constrained air, with how little em- 
phasis, she makes the acknowledgment ! See what a pale 
reflection it is of Divine light from second-hand evidence ! 
How like the cold glitter of phosphorescence in the black 
ocean ! It reveals no personal God ; and, least of all, does 
Science constrain us to anything like moral allegiance to its 
discovered first cause. This must be so from the very nature 
of the proof and the investigation. The truths which men 
discover are their servants, not their masters. When a 
man of science has, by the action of his own mind, deve- 
loped some hidden law of nature, some general principle 
of life, that discovery is as if it were his own creation, 
which might have been lost to the generations but for him. 
As one of the forces of the world it is an agent, not a lord ; 
to be used, not obeyed. No matter whether it be in phy- 
sics or in morals, the truth has been subjected to man's 
authoritative tests, has been fused in the crucible of his 
own mind, has passed under the die of his moulding power ; 



A. H. VINTON. 



357 



and when it comes forth for the currency of general 
thought, it bears the image and superscription of man, not 
God. 

How differently does the Bible teach the truth of a 
Deity ! not by the cold glitter of mere intelligence, but by 
the living sunlight, whose light is warmth ; and not only 
teaches, it exhibits Him. If Science ever indicates a God, 
she only points to the darkness where He dwells, and leaves 
us unimpassioned and unimpressed. But the AVord of God 
is His manifestation. He comes near to us in it, lays His 
hand upon us, draws away the veil of conjecture from our 
eyes, makes the whole splendour of His attributes shine 
into us, penetrates us with a new sense. We are no longer 
guessing scientifically at a simple, barren existence. He 
is no longer a philosophical abstraction, a First Cause, 
nameless and bodiless; but a living, powerful, moral 
Master, your Lord and mine. The profoundest instinct of 
our natures, which had slept through the moonlight of our 
scientific studies, is waked up suddenly by the flash of 
morning, the glow of eternity. It shines out from the 
mind of God, and when it penetrates the mind of man, it 
stirs the world within him to live and grow. It is the 
day-spring from on high. 

Did Science ever dream of a God incarnate — the mind 
and heart of Deity coming out to us through our own warm 
flesh and blood, and trying all the cords of human sympa- 
thy, to make us know and feel the God within us? Did 
Science, physical or moral, ever hint at the august truth 
of a present God, the consoling fact of a superintending 
God, the sublime and terrible view of a judging God, the 
felt grace of a redeeming God ? Did Science ever say more, 
essentially more than this: "here is something before us; 
a world, a mass of matter; let us see if we can extract 
something out of it." And that something, if it be extracted 



358 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



at all, legitimately or illegitimately, what is it ? The very 
zero of theological truth, viz., a possible intelligence, of 
which Science can positively affirm or deny just nothing. 

In this comparison of Science and Revelation, I have 
thus far considered them in those points in which they 
come together and stand side by side. I have aimed to 
show that, regarded merely as systems of instruction, hu- 
man Science has no well-grounded claim which entitles it 
to precedence ; that though Science and Revelation both 
spring from the unity of Divinity, yet that, in the present 
state of human Science, the believer in Revelation may 
stand firm in his position of faith, and demand that Science 
shall grow older and stronger and wiser before he will lift 
one foot from the platform of the Bible ; and that until 
Science shall attest itself by more certainty in its methods 
and conclusions, more universality in its principles, and a 
less atheistic spirit, he will still continue to wait on the 
Lord and rejoice in the light that comes from the entrance 
of his Word. Until that time, Revelation, as the grander 
power of the two, may exercise a majestic patience. It 
can afford to wait till Science has so far fledged its wings 
as to soar into the skies and see by the light of Gocl, and 
then Science and Revelation will be at one. 

But, before I conclude, I ought, in justice to our high 
and holy theme, to glance at one consideration, which dis- 
plays the value and power of the Word of God, not in com- 
parison with Science, but as standing alone in a position 
which Physical Science never assumed to occupy, and which 
Moral Science only vainly emulates. Regarding Divine 
Revelation as an agent for the education of man, we ought 
to consider its character for moral influence. See how it 
lays hold on all the motive powers of man, and the con- 
science first, Assuming the moral sense as a universal 
attribute, it appeals to it directly, with such authority that. 



A. II. VI N T 0 N. 



359 



whether man obeys or refuses, he feels that he is yielding 
to or resisting his God and Maker. And, next to the con- 
science, the Word of God addresses the hopes and fears of 
the soul by promises and threats the most soul-stirring. 
The love of life, the love of happiness, the love of excel- 
lence, the ambition of an honourable place in the esteem 
of all good beings, these are the impulses of hope, stirred 
up by the promises. Oneness with God, an eternal com- 
panionship with him, boundless knowledge, boundless bliss, 
and spotless purity covenanted for ever, these are the pro- 
mises that move the hope, powerful, ennobling, good, and 
perfectly good. 

On the other hand are the fears stirred up by the threats. 
The dread of woe, dread of death, and dread of degrada- 
tion before the universe, these are the instincts of nature, 
energized to agony by the thought of separation from God 
and all the good, and of communion for ever with the foul 
and the fallen, increasing hate, remorseful sorrow, world 
without end. If we search our natures through, there are 
no hopes and fears supreme like these. If we explore the 
whole realm of thought, there are no objects of hope and 
fear so commanding. And when these fail, and when they 
succeed, there is one sanction more penetrating to the heart 
and seizing the affections ; it is the appeal of gratitude to 
all men for incalculable mercy to each, the appeal of re- 
deeming love. Wherever it is felt, it is felt beyond ex- 
pression and beyond resistance, with only the regret that 
it cannot be felt more deeply. Nothing in earth or heaven 
can take the soul captive, lead it willingly away from its 
sins, bow it down in delighted adoration, melt it into a 
flood of thankful penitence, and raise it up a changed and 
transformed soul, like the love of a bleeding Saviour. He 
who resists it resists Heaven's last attempt at moral influ- 
ence. He who obeys it yields to the moral omnipotence 



£60 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 



of God. exerted on the most vital forces of the human 
character. 

And now, mark the operation of these forces, and trace 
the growth of the character trained thus by the Bible. 
While he who is educated by any form of Science alone, 
without the Word of God, leans on his own understanding 
and follows a fool's guidance ; while obeying his uncorrected 
impulses he stumbles when he thought he was safest; 
while, with no standard but his self-erected one, he may 
prostrate it as he pleases ; while with no master but his 
will, he is the foot-ball and plaything of those passions 
which are more wilful than his will ; while thoughtful only 
of the world he becomes, like it, the very vanity of vanities. 
Not so the faith-trained man, whose light is from the en- 
trance of God's word. 

Seeking all things from above, he schools his spirit to the 
patient waiting upon God. Strong in God, when weakest 
in himself, he is fortified for trials that would else over- 
power him. His life is not fitful, because his standard is 
unearthly, planted in the Rock of Ages. His belief is not 
opinion, and does not flow and ebb with the fashion of 
thinking. He is gentle from the humility that is in the 
habit of bending before God, yet courageous with the ambi- 
tion of having God for his own. It is the beautiful moral 
of faith. It is the highest fulfilment of the law of his 
being, the noblest working of regenerated manhood, than 
which a seraph's is not nobler, who at the Eternal Throne 
adores and burns. 

And now, with another word, I close this discourse, and 
with it, as I am informed, this course of Lectures. It is 
fitting that the course should conclude with the Bible. It 
is well that the preacher's parting word should be of faith 
in the revealed Word of God, which giveth light. Hold it 
in its wholeness as the best teaching on all subjects which 



A. H. VINTON. 361 

the world has seen yet ; true on all subjects, even though 
partial on some, and full enough on every subject necessary 
to educate us for immortality. Hold it supreme, sacredly 
high above all other teaching, for that which the world 
cannot teach, the redemption of the world, which the world 
never thought of, and Heaven never thought of but once. 
In this one truth is the light which is the life of men. In 
this one truth are garnered up all human interests, all 
human relations, duties, and destinies. Men have no con- 
cern with any knowledge that is so vast, so profound, so 
vital. The world's existence hinges on the redemption by 
Christ, and Heaven's central glory is the Crucified. He 
who • has not studied Redemption, whatever else he may 
have learned, knows nothing yet as he ought to know it. 
He who has been taught this Divinely, is wise above all 
other lore. It comprehends the life-principle of all other 
knowledge, explains terrestrial events, will survive terres- 
trial things. It will be the starting point of our immortal- 
ized minds, will be the impulse of our immortal growth, 
will make the perfection of our likeness to God, to know 
Christ and Him crucified. Hold the Bible then sacredest 
and best, not only for its certainty — surer than any other 
knowledge — not only for its deep and wide philosophy of 
men, of things, of the univeres ; but far away and above all 
other reasons, hold it as the Revelation of a Saviour for the 
lost. 



46 



C()e pstontal (^bibencrs of Cjjristrantfg. 



BY RT. REV. JOHN HENRY HOPKINS, 1). D, 

BISHOP OF TOE DIOCESE OF VERMONT. 



XIV. 



THE 

HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

" For ask nmv of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon 
the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the otlier, whether there hath been any such tiling as 
this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?" Dettt. iv. 32. 

THE religion of the Gospel, my brethren, as presented 
to us in the inspired pages of the Bible, is guarded by 
every defence, and enforced by every argument, which can 
be fairly demanded, either by the intellect or by the heart. 
Opposed on all sides by the spiritual eneix^ of our race, 
by the corrupt and sensual propensities of our fallen nature, 
and by the cavils of infidel sophistry, under the abused 
names of philosophy and science; it rises from each 
assault with renewed confidence in the truth of God. For 
no attack on Christianity has ever resulted in success. No 
weapon formed against it has ever prospered. On the con- 
trary, it has triumphed in every contest, and still goes on, 
conquering and to conquer. And how ? By what human 
power? By what human influence? By what human 
interest? Where are its mines of gold? Where are its 
fleets and armies? Where are its resources of earthly 
government and territory? Where are its motives of 
ambition, avarice, or pride ? Where are its allurements of 
worldly pleasure ; its supremacy in worldly knowledge ; its 

(365) 



£63 HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

command over worldly learning, science, or policy ? With- 
out any of these — nay, rather against them all — Christi- 
anity has gained its pure and peaceful victories through the 
might of heavenly truth, and the force of the Divine 
blessing. If it were a device of men, the hostility of men 
would long ago have overthrown it. But because it is of 
God, the opposition of the world, and the enmity of Satan, 
combined together, have never been able to prevail. 

It is not my design, however, on the present occasion, to 
explore the vast field of evidence which is laid open by the 
sublime claims of the Christian system. To other and to 
abler advocates I shall leave the varied aspects of the 
noble subject which the infidel tendencies of the present 
day have called upon us to examine ; and I shall confine 
myself to a brief review of the single proof derived from 
historical facts, which no intelligent mind can question, in 
the full conviction that even this alone is all-sufficient to 
demonstrate the celestial origin and Divine authority of the 
Gospel. May the Spirit of the living God be graciously 
present with us, that the humble effort be not made in vain ! 

I undertake, then, to establish this broad proposition, 
that the heavenly truth and power of Christianity, as it is 
set forth in the Holy Scriptures, are inscribed in characters 
of living light on the wdiole face of history. And I ask 
your best attention, my brethren, to each step in the argu- 
ment as I pass along. 

1. Commencing with the Old Testament, look, I pray 
you, at the historical facts which prove its truth beyond 
the possibility of refutation. For the entire nation of the 
Jews are witnesses to their own marvellous descent, laws, 
and religion, all mingled inseparably with prophecies and 
stupendous miracles, and marked by a totally peculiar 
principle of polity, standing alone amongst the families, 
tribes, kingdoms, and empires of our world. No other 



HOPKINS. 



S67 



people ever existed, as a distinct nation, who traced their 
existence from one man, as they do from Abraham. No 
other people of antiquity possessed the knowledge of the 
one true God, clear of all idolatry. No other people were 
delivered from bondage, without war or violence, by the 
display of Almighty power; sustained miraculously for 
forty years in the wilderness, and established victoriously 
over seven nations more powerful than themselves. No 
nation beside the Jews had a form of government so free, 
benevolent, and equal ; where every family had its own 
allotment of land; where justice w r as administered so 
fairly ; where there was no room allowed for tyranny upon 
the one hand, or licentiousness upon the other ; where bro- 
therly love and kindness and charity w r ere commanded by 
the very laws ; and where the whole system, from the wor- 
ship of the Sanctuary down to the smallest regulation of 
domestic life, w r as all held by the express dictation of the 
Almighty. No nation beside the Jews could boast of pos- 
sessing a clear continuous history of four thousand years ; 
beginning at the creation, and proceeding almost to the 
coining of their great Messiah ; all w r ritten by holy men, 
who claimed the gift of Inspiration, and proved it by pro- 
phecies which have been so wonderfully fulfilled. And no 
nation, unassisted by Divine power, could have subsisted 
as they have done ; for more than seventeen hundred years 
have passed away since their country was taken from 
them, and their city Jerusalem, with its magnificent temple, 
was razed to the ground, according to the Divine predic- 
tion, and they became dispersed and despised throughout 
the earth. And yet they have refused to abandon their 
ancient faith. They have refused to amalgamate with 
others. They have remained, all over the world, a distinct 
and peculiar people, for almost eighteen centuries together ; 



368 HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and still continue to maintain their marvellous individu- 
ality even in our own day. 

Here, then, I place the first great series of historical 
facts, which is totally incontrovertible. No cavils of infi- 
delity can ever overthrow it, because it stands, like the sun 
in the firmament, single and alone, as a light to the world. 
The unbeliever, indeed, undertakes to account for the whole 
by supposing that Moses, the great lawgiver and leader of 
the ancient Jews, was only a skilful impostor, who deluded 
the people. But it needs a thousandfold more credulity to 
accept this hypothesis, than to receive the records of the 
Bible. Assuredly, if we admit the being of a God, all 
those wonders might have taken place without any diffi- 
culty ; whereas, if we imagine that Moses was an impostor, 
the whole history becomes a gross and absurd impossibility. 
For how could any impostor persuade the nation of the 
Jews, amounting to more than two millions of souls, that 
they were led out of Egypt, sustained in the wilderness, 
and established in Canaan, by the very power of God, dis- 
played by the most public and open wonders, if those 
wonders never took place at all ? How could an impostor 
undertake such miracles as those which were witnessed by 
that extraordinary people ? Let the infidel collect all the 
lies of heathenism together, and he will find nothing to be 
compared, for a moment, with the stupendous works of 
God displayed in the sight of Israel. Nay, I confidently 
aver that the mind of man never conceived so vast and 
amazing a series of astounding manifestations. And how 
could an impostor address his history to a whole people as 
Moses does in the Book of Deuteronomy, appealing to them 
as eye-witnesses ? How could an impostor reveal to man- 
kind the only system of pure religion, full of precepts of 
benevolence, purity, and truth ? Would an impostor lead 
a life of the utmost self-denial, labour, and simplicity, as 



H 0 P K I N S. 



369 



Moses did, without even leaving to his own sons any office 
of pre-eminence or dignity ? Could an impostor prophesy 
to his own nation a future history of calamity, oppression, 
and desolation, as Moses did to Israel, all of which we 
know to have been fulfilled ? Could an impostor deliver to 
the world laws, religion, and principles, which were adopted 
in after ages by all the most favoured nations, and are 
believed at this hour, as firmly as ever, though empires, and 
races, and systems have risen and fallen, and three thousand 
four hundred years have rolled away ? Could an impostor, 
with a succession of other impostors, predict the most re- 
markable events of all future time, — the destructions of 
Nineveh, and Babylon, and Tyre; the debasement of 
Egypt, the subversion of the Greek and Eoman empires, 
the ruin of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, the 
coming of Christ, His suffering and death, and the esta- 
blishment of His Church, all of which we know to have 
been accomplished ? No, no, my brethren ! This hypo- 
thesis of the infidel is the wildest of all absurdities. When 
we believe that the infinite foreknowledge and power of 
God were employed on behalf of His people, there is no 
difficulty. But he who refuses to believe this, is forced to 
believe a thousand impossibilities at open war with all 
human contrivance and capacity. 

2. Here, then, in the wonderful career of the literal 
Israel, we have the first great historical demonstration of 
the truth of God, in the Old Testament. And we have a 
parallel to it, not less convincing, in the establishment of 
the Church, the Spiritual Israel, in the New Testament 
Scriptures. For no man can deny the one, any more than 
he can deny the other. The Church exists. This fact 
is notorious. How and when did it come into being ? The 
heathen historians all agree with the Bible that its founder 
was Jesus Christ; that He was crucified at Jerusalem in the 
47 



370 HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

reign of the emperor Tiberius; that His followers were 
poor unlettered men ; that their converts increased rapidly 
throughout the old Roman empire ; that they were bitterly 
persecuted, from time to time, during the first three hundred 
years, because they opposed the heathenism which was 
everywhere established. And every one knows, that soon 
afterwards their religion was triumphant over the civilized 
world. The Scriptures account for all this by showing that 
this religion was the fulfilment and completion of the pre- 
vious system, given to ancient Israel ; that Jesus was the 
Son of God, who became incarnate for the salvation of man- 
kind ; that His ministry was marked by constant miracles ; 
that He died upon the cross as an atonement offering for the 
sins of the world ; that He arose from the dead, according 
to His own prediction, and ascended into Heaven ; that the 
Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles, and enabled those 
ignorant and humble men to proclaim the most sublime and 
pure system which was ever known ; that they went from 
place to place, in labours, in toils, in danger, and in suffer- 
ings, according to the command of their Divine Master ; 
and that everywhere, by their preaching and their miracles, 
the power of God gave them success in converting multi- 
tudes from the horrible superstitions of Paganism, and a 
life of sin, and thus established the Church, which has de- 
scended to our own day. 

But all this, too, the infidel treats as an imposture. And 
in so doing, as in the other case, he tries to get rid of an 
imaginary difficulty, by embracing real and absolute impos- 
sibilities. For in truth, this difficulty of the unbeliever is 
no difficulty at all, w T hen we admit that God loved the 
poor fallen world which He had once created, and designed 
to give mankind a Saviour to redeem them from their sins, 
and prepare them for life and happiness eternal. But how 
should an impostor undertake a w T ork like this? How 



HOPKINS. 



371 



should the unlettered son of a carpenter have invented the 
sublimest system of holiness which was ever known amongst 
mankind? And what motive could have induced our 
Lord to deceive His followers ? Was it the love of wealth, 
when He chose poverty for His portion ? Was it the love 
of power, when He refused to be made a king ? Was it the 
love of ease, when He led a life of persecution, and submitted 
to be crucified ? And what motive could have governed 
His Apostles to imitate His course, and become, like Him, 
willing martyrs to the cause of His Gospel ? And whence 
did they derive the wondrous power which enabled the poor 
fishermen of Galilee to clo a mightier work beyond com- 
parison than all the sages, philosophers, and priests that 
ever existed since the world began ? 

Thus the plain truth of history stares the infidel in the 
face, and demonstrates, of necessity, the Divine truth and 
power of the Gospel. For the Church of Christ is esta- 
blished, and is, at this very moment, notwithstanding all our 
faults and imperfections, the mightiest power upon the 
earth. And this Church, by the infidel's own acknowledg- 
ment, was founded by a poor mechanic of Nazareth, who 
was persecuted by His countrymen, and was crucified be- 
tween two thieves, in the reign of the emperor Tiberius, 
and His instruments were twelve poor ignorant men, of 
the lower orders, while the thirteenth, St. Paul, though 
learned for his time and country, was utterly destitute of 
rank, connexion, or authority, despised by the Romans 
because he was a Jew, and hated by the Jews when he 
became a Christian. Could it ever enter the head of 
thirteen such men to go forth for the purpose of overturn- 
ing, by lies and imposture, the religion and philosophy of 
the whole world ? Is it conceivable that these impostors 
should have devoted themselves to such a wild and ridicu- 
lous attempt, in the service of a crucified man, whom they 



372 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



must have known to be a deceiver? Is it possible that a 
company of foolish and crazy knaves could have gulled 
mankind so completely, that their converts were ready to 
go to prison, and to death, for a lie, which any reasonable 
mind might have detected, when their claims and their 
actual performances were compared together ? Is it to be 
believed, for a moment, that the Apostles, who must have 
known the cheat, should have been themselves willing to 
pass thirty or forty years of life in constant toils and 
dangers, and at last become willing martyrs to the false- 
hood ? And could all this have succeeded throughout the 
most civilized and enlightened countries of the heathen 
world, in overturning the philosophy and the religion of 
every nation, notwithstanding the opposition of princes and 
rulers, laws and customs, arts and eloquence, in the palmy 
days of the old Roman empire ? 

Hence, I maintain that the infidel, in refusing to believe 
the Divine truth of the Christian religion, rejects the plain 
testimony of historical fact, and gives his mind up to the 
most absurd impossibilities. In all the annals of our race, 
there is no other instance of an assault upon the established 
religion and morals of mankind, by such an instrumentality 
as that of the poor fishermen of Galilee. In all the records 
of humanity there is nothing to justify the preposterous 
notion that such an assault, by any earthly management, 
could have been crowned with success. While, on the 
other hand, there is no reason whatever for doubting the 
love or power of God. Why should not the Almighty 
have pitied the fallen and ruined condition of His crea- 
tures ? Why should He not have revealed His truth and 
mercy, and given them the means of returning to holiness 
and happiness ? Why should He not have provided them 
with a Saviour, and brought life and immortality to light 
in His blessed Gospel ? In believing all this, we believe 



HOPKINS. 



S73 



nothing which is not perfectly accordant with the attributes 
of the Almighty. While, in rejecting it, the infidel believes 
a mass of absurdities, totally impossible to the powers of 
human nature, and in direct and palpable contradiction to 
all the motives, capacities, and conduct of mankind. 

3. The third branch of this evidence of history leads us 
to consider Christianity as the only moral and spiritual 
enlightener of the world. Thus, it is well known to every 
ordinary reader, that the old Greeks and Komans were 
highly civilized in everything else, while they w r ere utterly 
debased in morals and religion. Their writers are used, 
to this day, as masters in all our schools. Homer, iEschy- 
lus, and Sophocles amongst the poets ; Herodotus, Xeno- 
phon, and Thucydides amongst historians ; Pericles and 
Demosthenes among orators ; Aristotle, Plato, and Epic- 
tetus among philosophers, gave the brightest lustre to the 
literature of Greece. And, amongst the Eomans, Virgil, 
Horace, and Juvenal, Livy and Tacitus, Cicero and Quin- 
tilian, Seneca and Lucretius, with a long list of others, 
shone with equal brilliancy. In architecture, in painting, 
in sculpture, these ancients were confessedly pre-eminent ; 
and the world has never exceeded them in individual ex- 
amples of patriotism, and magnanimity, and heroic valour. 
But their religious faith was a mass of falsehood and cor- 
ruption. Saturn, the oldest of their imaginary gods, was 
believed to have devoured his own children, and to have 
been dethroned by his son Jupiter, who was the sovereign 
of the gods, and held his court on Mount Olympus. His 
history was a picture of corruption and debauchery. Juno, 
his wife, was called the queen of heaven, and was a vixen 
and a shrew. His daughter, Venus, was the patroness of 
all licentiousness. Bacchus was the god of wine and 
drunkenness. Mercury was the god of thieves. Mars and 
Bellona were the patrons of war. True, indeed, the vir- 



£74 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



tues had their appropriate deities likewise, but all of these 
were inferior in power, and were held to have no dominion 
or prerogative which could be compared with those of the 
superior gods, whose whole administration was marked 
with every crime of human profligacy. While all these 
celestial powers were supposed to be subject to the Fates, or 
Destiny, represented by three old women, against whose 
decisions Jupiter himself could do nothing. 

Of course there could be no true morality in union with 
such a religion, because the gods themselves were believed 
to be examples of every favourite sin. The laws of the land 
did, indeed, preserve those precepts which were essential to 
the defence of life, liberty, and property ; because, without 
these, society could not be held together. The philoso- 
phers, also, taught many sublime and pure truths, which 
were adopted by their disciples. They maintained, like- 
wise, a future judgment, founded on the rules of moral vir- 
tue. But this judgment was not committed to the gods. 
Three deified mortals, who, in their lifetime, had been 
kings, were supposed to be the judges; and thus virtue 
was entirely divorced from religion, and only supported by 
the common standard of human law and sentiment. Hence, 
their wisest and best men indulged, without scruple, in 
unnatural lusts, despised the popular superstition, while 
they honoured it outwardly, and wandered, without any 
resting-place for the mind or the heart, in the midst of 
spiritual darkness and confusion. 

Such, briefly, was the universal condition of the most 
enlightened nations of the world, during those classic ages, 
whose monuments of literature, eloquence, and art we still 
delight to honour. The Jews were the only exception ; 
because they were taught of God. Their dispersion 
throughout the countries of the heathen, though decreed 
by the Divine judgment as a punishment for their sins, 



HOPKINS. 



375 



was overruled by Providence so as to make them the 
instruments to disseminate the truth among the heathen. 
Their sacred writings were more ancient, by a thousand 
years, than those of Herodotus, the oldest Greek historian. 
Pythagoras lived five hundred years before the advent 
of Christ, and all the other philosophers were still later. 
The whole of these, therefore, had abundant opportunity 
to learn, from the Jewish Scriptures, those principles which 
so many unreflecting men have thought fit to ascribe to 
the unassisted light of nature. From the books of Moses, 
Lycurgus might easily have taken the best parts of his 
famous system for Lacedsemonia. And Solon, the lawgiver 
of Athens, had equal access to the same fountain of truth, 
which was alike open to Numa, of Rome, and all the other 
sages of antiquity. So striking was the similarity between 
the sacred records of Israel and the system of Plato, espe- 
cially, that one of the old Fathers asks, "Who is Plato, but 
Moses speaking Greek ?" Besides this, however, it is ob- 
vious that some portion of the Divine truth, which was 
held by the patriarch Noah, must have descended from 
him to all the nations of the earth ; and hence, it is mani- 
fest that we can readily account for the historical fact that 
a certain amount of God's own teaching was still retained 
amongst the awful corruptions of heathenism ; enough, like 
the glimmering stars in the darkness of the night, to shed 
some feeble radiance upon the eyes of the spectator, but 
not enough to dispel the deep obscurity, or guide the tra- 
veller through the prevailing gloom. 

But I must ask your attention to another and a later 
period in the history of Europe, when even this classic 
light, such as it was, was scattered by the irruption of the 
barbarian hordes upon the old Roman empire. Look back, 
then, I pray you, upon the condition of Germany, Austria, 
France, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, England, and the rest. 



£76 HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

What were all of these, our own ancestors, eighteen cen- 
turies ago ? What were most of them, even four centuries 
later? Every reader of history knows that they were 
heathen savages, but little superior to our own native 
Indian tribes, in religion, learning, or civilization. And 
what has made them such as we now behold, but Christi- 
anity ? What but the labours and the miracles and the 
heavenly teachings of those poor apostles of Galilee con- 
quered the corruption of Greece and Kome, and enlightened 
the gross barbarism of the rest of Europe ? And was not 
this wondrous work of human improvement a worthy 
cause for the incarnation of the Son of God, when the 
subtlety of Satan, and the insane folly of the human heart, 
had wrapped mankind in the thickest clouds of idolatry, 
cruelty, and licentiousness, and nothing could regenerate 
them but light and power from Heaven ? 

4. And this leads me to observe the fourth historical 
proof which demonstrates the Divine origin of our holy 
religion, namely, that the Bible alone has restored to 
woman her true place of dignity and importance in the 
social system of the world. Search the records of all the 
nations; go abroad at this day through the territories of 
the heathen and the Turk ; and everywhere you will find 
that woman is debased to be either the drudge and slave, 
or else the sensual plaything of the stronger sex; and 
nowhere but among Christians can you see her in her true 
position, as our counsellor, our companion, and our help- 
mate ; the teacher of our early years, the dearest comfort 
of our home, the encourager and supporter of piety and 
religion, and the strongest bond, as well as the brightest 
ornament of society. Nothing short of a Divine power 
could have wrought such a revolution in the domestic and 
social feelings of our race ; and the infidel, when he seeks 
to discredit it, not only destroys all hope of the future life, 



II 0 P K I N S. 



577 



but digs the grave of the most precious blessings of this 
present world, which have survived the ruins of the fall. 

5. I shall only add, as the fifth and last historical proof, 
the unquestionable fact that the Bible has impressed its 
stamp of purity and benevolence upon all the governments, 
laws, institutions, and customs of the best and mightiest 
nations of the world ; and that those are the greatest among 
these nations, where its Divine authority is best main- 
tained, according to the rule laid down by the Almighty : 
" Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is the reproach 
of any people " Those that honour me I will honour, and 
those that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." I mean 
not to say that any government has yet appeared, which 
has been wholly guided by Christian principle. Far from 
it. The Saviour himself declared, " My kingdom is not of 
this world." But I do mean to say, and I say it most con- 
fidently, that the Christian religion has modified and 
restrained the evil, and stimulated the good, in the whole 
history of our race, wherever it has planted its standard. 
It has moderated the fierceness of war. It has cherished 
the arts of peace. It has sweetened the bondage of the 
slave, when it could not free him altogether. It has puri- 
fied literature, painting, and sculpture from their old 
licentiousness. It has abolished the ancient severities of 
the rack and the prison-house. It has diffused the blessings 
of education. It has guarded the oath of office, and of 
judicial testimony, by an appeal to the Searcher of Hearts. 
It has elevated the whole moral sense of every civilized 
community. And at this moment, in spite of all the 
enmity of Satan, and the opposition of misguided and 
insane men, the Bible is the great book of the ruling 
nations of the world, and all the good attempted or achieved 
among them is connected, directly or indirectly, with its 
controlling influence. t 

48 " 



S78 HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

What now, I beseech you, has the unbeliever to allege, 
against this mass of historical evidence ? First, he cavils 
at the war which the Almighty directed against the wicked 
and idolatrous Canaanites; as if God did not know when it 
was right to exterminate a race of most flagitious sinners, 
and deliver them to the sword of justice. Yet the infidel 
himself approves the principle which governs the earthly 
judge, when he condemns the murderer to death, and 
orders the sheriff to execute the sentence. Why then 
does he deny the prerogative of the Lord, who is the judge 
of all the earth, to condemn a most abandoned and 
depraved people, and commission Israel to execute the 
sentence, for the very purpose of impressing them with a 
deeper sense of hatred for the sins which had thus incurred 
the Divine displeasure ? So far is this from being really 
open to objection, that it is a strong example to mankind 
of the principle which guides the government of God. In 
the same way, the Almighty has always been directing the 
scourge "of war, pestilence, and famine. The infliction, in 
every case, is doubtless a chastisement of sin, as it was in 
the case of Canaan. And here, indeed, we might well ask, 
what does the unbeliever gain by supposing that all the 
calamities in the world are the result of chance or accident, 
or, at most, of human ignorance or folly ? He does not 
deny that there is a God who created all things, and thus 
far he professes to agree with the Christian. But is it not 
absurd to imagine that God abandons His work to itself, as 
soon as He has made it, and thinks it no longer worthy of 
His government and care ? Would the infidel praise the 
wisdom of a man who should employ his utmost power 
and skill in constructing piece after piece of the most 
exquisite machinery, and then cast them all away without 
any further attention ? How infinitely more just and 
rational is the doctrine of Christianity, that all the events 



H o r K I N s. 



379 



of this life are subject to the controlling Providence of the 
Almighty; that judgment is 'appointed to the rebellious, 
and mercy to the obedient, and that the whole complicated 
system is regulated by His wisdom, so that ultimately all 
things shall work together for good to those that love Him. 

Next, however, I may briefly notice the trivial cavils of 
the infidel against the miracles, which he sagely condemns 
as contrary to experience, because they were only granted 
on special occasions, connected with the early history of 
Israel, and the first establishment of the Church But 
here again he talks absurdly, because it belongs to God's 
wisdom, and not to ours, to determine the times and the 
seasons when the state of mankind called for those extra- 
ordinary manifestations. The proof of miracles is written 
on the face of history, as I have already shown; and as it 
is impossible to account for the facts of the Jewish narra- 
tive on any other hypothesis, without utterly subverting 
all the rules of human evidence, and equally impossible to 
account, without miracles, for the establishment of the 
Church, we are compelled to admit them on the highest 
reason. Certainly no man who allows the being of a God, 
can deny that He may work miracles when He deems it 
necessary. And it is equally plain, that as God is the only 
competent judge of the necessity, it is our duty and privi- 
lege to praise the goodness which employed them for the 
vindication of His government, and the establishment of 
His truth and mercy in the salvation of mankind. 

The third objection of the infidel is usually directed 
against the fact that Christianity, in the hands of the Pope 
of Rome, was the cause of innumerable wars, persecutions, 
cruelty, and bloodshed, for surpassing the worst periods of 
heathenism itself. But here, too, is a most unwarranted 
assumption. None of all this was the work of Christianity, 
as we see it in the Bible ; but, on the contrary, it was the 



£80 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



work of reckless ambition and human policy, in alliance 
with superstition, avarice, and pride. And the Scriptures 
themselves derive from those melancholy facts a new evi- 
dence of their Divine authority, because they predicted the 
falling away of the Church from its original purity, and 
the reign of an antichristian power, who, sitting in the 
temple of God, should bring in a long period of corruption 
and iniquity. Yet even through these ages of darkness 
and despotism, the religion of the Bible was transmitted 
down, from generation to generation, until at length it was 
reinstated in the face of the world by the glorious Informa- 
tion of the sixteenth century. And since that blessed 
event, it is notorious that Christianity has exerted the best 
and purest influence against all that is evil, and in favour 
of all that is good and true. 

Lastly, the infidel objects to the strifes and discussions 
among Christians themselves, and points to the blots and 
imperfections of their lives as decisive proofs of the insuf- 
ficiency of the Scriptures, and the uncertainty of their 
teaching, so inconsistent with their claims to be a Bevela- 
tion from Heaven. But in this he ignorantly mistakes the 
true principles of judgment, by confounding the Word of 
God with the infirmity of men. I grant that the strifes 
and discussions of Christians are sad proofs of human weak- 
ness. I grant that the inconsistencies of professing 
believers are a mournful evidence of defective faith. But 
what Christian Church was ever known to cast the blame 
upon the Bible ? Or what Christian man ever denied that 
the fault was in himself alone ? And what right has the 
infidel to say that the Scriptures, in the authority of which 
all Christians agree, are the source of the varieties in 
which they differ ? 

So far, however, are these defects from furnishing an 
argument against the Christianity of the Bible, that they 



HOPKINS. 



afford, in truth, a direct evidence to demonstrate its Divine 
inspiration. For there we read that, notwithstanding the 
establishment of the system of God in ancient Israel, the 
tendency to corruption produced a sad decline, so that their 
idolatry and wickedness brought down upon them the 
severest chastisements, and finally provoked the Almighty 
to give them up to national ruin. We read, also, the dis- 
tinct prediction, that after the decease of the Apostles, men 
would arise in the Church, speaking perverse things, to 
draw away disciples after them ; that the time should come 
when men would be proud, boastful, and rebellious, having 
the form of godliness but denying the power thereof ; that 
by reason of this, the way of truth should be evil spoken 
of; that there would be a general declension of the life of 
faith, so that iniquity should abound, and the love of many 
should grow cold ; that before the second coming of Christ 
in judgment, it should be as it was in the days of Noah, 
when the deluge descended and destroyed them. All this, 
and much more, the Bible itself declares ; and hence, the 
very divisions, strifes, and worldliness of Christians, which 
are so absurdly insisted on as an argument against the 
Scriptures, are in reality a perfect demonstration that they 
could only have for their author that omniscient God who 
seeth the end from the beginning. 

The infidel, therefore, is inexcusable in the rejection of 
that only Divine religion which brings life and immortality 
to light, through the precious Gospel of our Lord and 
Saviour. The differences amongst Christians, however 
deplorable, only prove the more forcibly the authority of 
that Bible, in which they all agree. And the absurdity of 
raising an objection to the truth of religion out of these 
differences is palpably evident from this, that the caviller 
takes good care never to follow the same course in anything 
else, lie knows, perfectly well, that there is truth in law, 



582 HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

although lawyers disagree ; that there is truth in medicine, 
though doctors differ; that there is truth in government, 
though politicians quarrel ; that there is truth in morality, 
though the world is full of villany and selfishness. And 
he understands, likewise, that on all those subjects the best 
proof of truth lies in the very fact, that there is a certain 
amount of authority in which all parties concur, and to 
which they all appeal, as so much common property. Why, 
then, does he refuse to apply the same reasoning to the 
Bible, when he knows that all Christians, without excep- 
tion, acknowledge it as a revelation from Heaven, and only 
dispute because they do not follow the same principles of 
interpretation ? If we should think that man a fool or a 
lunatic, who rejects all law, all medicine, all government, 
because lawyers, doctors, and statesmen are seen perpetu- 
ally to disagree, what should be thought of him who rejects 
the religion of the Bible, because Christians differ ? 

I have no doubt, however, after the observation and 
reflection of many years, that all the infidelity of our day 
is mainly attributable to the sin of wilful ignorance. 
Indeed, I believe it impossible for any man to read the 
Scriptures through, with a serious and candid mind, without 
a firm persuasion that they contain what they profess — the 
Word of God, which maketh wise unto salvation. And in 
this lies the crime of infidelity, in the sight of Heaven, 
that the Divine Kecord is rejected at second hand, without 
a fair and full examination; that the cause is decided 
without an impartial hearing; that Moses and the Pro- 
phets, the Saviour and the Apostles, Martyrs and Con- 
fessors, the whole Church of Christ, and the mercy and 
love of God Himself, are all condemned, without a fair 
and honest trial ; and thus the poor infidel treats the only 
hope of a dying world, and the salvation of his own soul, 
with less attention and regard than he bestows upon the 



HOPKINS. 



283 



lightest matter of earthly property. 0, how shall he 
answer for. this high contempt, when he stands before the 
Judgment Seat? How shall he justify the devotion of his 
noblest faculties to every object of sensual appetite, and 
sordid gain, and fleeting honour; while he disdained to 
listen to the words of God, and scorned the offered inherit- 
ance of life eternal? May no such criminal scorn, my 
beloved brethren, be charged on any soul amongst you ! 
May you all have grace to acquire that knowledge, and 
secure that happiness, which the blessed Kedeemer has 
promised to bestow on every sincere seeker ! Then you 
will see, for yourselves, the majesty, the purity, and the 
wisdom of the Gospel system. You will pity and wonder 
at the blindness and prejudice of unbelief. You will 
behold the demonstration of Divine truth in all the great 
events of history. And you will experience, above all, the 
power of that precious religion, which alone can take the 
sting from death, and the victory from the grave, and give 
you that peace which passeth understanding, which the 
world can neither give nor take away. 



A 



%\t fitted (fftikttts 0f C{rastian% 



BY REV. GREGORY T. BEDELL, 

RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION, NEW TORS. 



40 



XV. 



THE 

INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

" If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine luhct/ter it he of God." 1 St. John vn. 17. 

THE internal evidences of Christianity hold an important 
place in the argument for its truth and Divinity. No 
amount of external evidence could prove that our religion 
came from God, if its system were inharmonious or incon- 
sistent with itself, if it were unworthy of the Divine cha- 
racter, or unsuited to the condition and destiny of man. 
We therefore need its internal evidences to complete its 
proof. 

As usually stated, this argument is not sufficient inde- 
pendently. The purity and excellence of religion, its 
utility and benevolent tendency, or its perfect consistency 
and systematic beauty, prove, only, that it is icorthy of 
God. Although we may infer that a scheme so Godlike 
did originate in the Divine mind, still, the question of fact 
must be determined, as are all similar questions, by suffi- 
cient external evidence. In this view, the internal evi- 
dences are chiefly valuable to the sincere inquirer or to the 
practical Christian. 

(387) 



C88 INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

A conviction of the inherent excellence and benevolence 
of our religion prepares a sincere inquirer to receive, and 
predisposes him to believe other proofs of its Divine origin. 
Whilst seriously examining them, he will lightly weigh 
neither historic testimony, the evidence of miracles and 
prophecy, the analogy of natural religion, nor the concur- 
rent facts of science ; feeling that his highest interests are 
vitally staked upon the conclusion to which he shall arrive. 
In the view of a practical Christian, the internal and 
external evidences of Christianity exchange places; the 
internal become primary and positive, the external, second- 
ary and supplemental. For his experience of religion is 
worth more to him than the resolution of any number of 
historical or scientific doubts, or the multiplication, to any 
degree, of human witnesses and miraculous testimony. A 
miracle has been wrought within himself by the power of 
this religion — he has a witness within himself to the sub- 
stantive value of this religion — which fully suffice for his 
self-conviction. Nor is this persuasion visionary. It is 
perfectly rational. It is according to a natural process. 
"We are conscious in our inmost souls that, since we have 
embraced this heavenly religion and faithfully followed its 
precepts, we have enjoyed peace and happiness, and pos- 
sessed strength for holiness unknown before." It follows 
that it is the only means of promoting and securing tran- 
quillity of mind, spiritual power, and true happiness. From 
such a conviction we pass, without an interval and in 
despite of theoretical difficulties, to the conclusion, that 
Christ's religion is true and Divine. Such a result, in- 
wrought by our experience, is quite as satisfactory to our- 
selves as the mere intellectual result of reasoning upon 
external evidences. If there be a choice, the practical 
Christian is more sure of the Heavenly origin of his religion, 
from what he has felt of its effects, than the most profound 



BEDELL. 



389 



reasoner, who, from its external proof alone, has determined 
it to be a speculative certainty. 

Such is our Saviour's thought. And we have placed his 
language prominently before you, not properly as our text, 
but simply as His expression of the value of the internal 
evidences of Christianity. Nor, although we do not intend 
to develop this idea, can we omit to reiterate His instruction 
to every seriously-minded inquirer. If any man will know, 
w T ith absolute certainty, whether this doctrine be of God, 
let him do God's will. It is the test of experience. The 
doctrine practised will approve itself. 

Yet, to set forth this value of the argument to the sin- 
cere inquirer and the practical Christian, is not sufficient 
for our present purpose. We shall not be satisfied unless 
the internal evidences of Christianity present to every 
intelligent and honest hearer an argument equally logical, 
whether he be interested to believe or disbelieve the truth 
of religion. We are not content that the internal evidences 
should be deemed subordinate to the external, or that they 
should lose their proper influence, even upon sceptical 
minds. We hold them to be co-ordinate, and, at least, 
equally convincing. 

There is a mode, I think, in which this argument can 
be stated, so as to elevate it to its rightful position : by 
which it may be taken out of the category of secondary 
and probable proofs, and placed among the primary and 
positive. And, for the purpose of this argument, we shall 
appeal only to your knowledge of what are professedly the 
characteristic doctrines and intentions of Christianity ; and 
what are your experiences of the characteristics of our hu- 
man nature. We shall not assert that the doctrines are 
true, or the intentions sure to be realized, except so far as 
general experience testifies to them ; but we shall only ask 
credit for the fidelity of our statements of them. 



390 INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

From the fitness of things, we may always argue their 
purpose and design. The adaptation of the eye to light, 
of the ear to sound, of the lungs to the chemical properties 
of the atmosphere, prove a Divine purpose in constructing 
one for the other. All the adaptations of the human frame 
to the external world, exhibit the hand of a wise and 
benevolent Designer; and the conclusion is held to be 
legitimate and true, that since the world and men are what 
they are, the nice fitting of their physical relations could 
have proceeded from no Being less than Divine. The force 
of this argument turns upon the knowledge and skill 
required for adapting two distinct organizations to each 
other ; and its power increases in proportion to the compli- 
cations of the organisms. Using the familiar illustration of 
a master in this logic, the construction of a time-piece 
requires skill, and proves the existence of its maker. But 
how much more, we may add, if that time-piece be so 
adapted to the changes of the atmosphere, as to alter its 
own power with each alternation of heat and cold, mois- 
ture and dryness ! And yet how much more positively 
still, if that time-piece, not only changing with the fickle 
atmosphere, also follows the variations of the sun, and, 
through every moment of a year, exhibits not only the 
apparent, but the real time ! Such illustrations indicate 
the line of thought, but are feeble representatives of the 
wonderful adaptations of the human body to the universe 
in which it abides. 

The argument rapidly increases in value, as we ascend 
from the merely physical to the mental, social, or spiritual 
world ; and consider how marvellously, at each step, the 
relations of the human being to that which is about him, 
becomes intricate and complicated. Yet to all these con- 
ditions he is adapted. The foresight and wisdom which 
made all these worlds, physical, intellectual social, and 



BEDELL. 



391 



spiritual, and adapted man to live in them all, are not less 
than Omniscience. 

If now there be any force in such an argument, to prove 
that man is the offspring of Divine skill, with still greater 
force does it prove, that the Christian Religion is from the 
authorship of God. For, supplementary to this creation 
of man, after all his relations to this various world, physi- 
cal, intellectual, social, and spiritual, had been fixed ; after 
the complications of his being and conditions had been 
made what they are, the Christian Keligion was formed for 
him, and adapted to him and to them, so as to meet every 
condition of his complex existence. 

Observe the problem : There is given, a world of men ; 
in nature, rational, sensual, affectionate, religious, mortal, 
and immortal ; in social position, bound together by curi- 
ously interlacing ties of family, civil and general rela- 
tionships ; in spiritual condition, fallen and depraved 
beings, yet capable of indefinite moral improvement, and 
consciously destined for present and eternal happiness. 
There is required, a scheme of religion, holy, benevolent, 
consistent with itself, Godlike, which shall answer every 
condition of the question, supply every spiritual necessity 
arising out of whatever relation, adapt itself to every 
changing mood of human thought, to every varying phase 
of human manners, to each variety of Providential state ; 
and, when rightly applied, according to its own laws, 
capable of satisfying every human being in the world. 
Will any mind less than Divine undertake to contrive such 
a religion ? 

Let us observe the problem worked out : The adaptation 
of Christianity to mankind. Man is a rational being. 
Keason, combined with the power of perceiving the moral 
quality of actions, constitutes the peculiar characteristic 
of humanity. The Christian Religion, therefore, presents 



392 INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

itself to men as rational in all its statements, and as sub- 
mitting all its evidences to the test of reason. But Christi- 
anity is consistent with itself in not submitting all its truths 
to the measure of human understanding. As revelation, 
and not reason, is the source of its doctrines, it is perfectly 
rational that some truths, being in accordance with the 
Divine, should be superior to the human reason ; not, in- 
deed, contrary to it, but above its sphere. Christianity 
represents the objects of religious faith as belonging to the 
spiritual world; they are, therefore, from the very nature 
of the case, incomprehensible to man ; and Christianity 
would be irrational did she demand of reason to go beyond 
her sphere in attempting to comprehend them. She requires 
a faith which is rational, i. e., which is conformed to the laws 
of our thinking nature ; and she submits all the grounds 
of this faith to the judgment of enlightened human reason. 
To have done more or less would have been to utter a dis- 
cord amongst the harmonies of man's reasoning soul ; to 
have done this is to have adapted herself completely to his 
rational nature. 

Man is a being of sensation, fitted to a world of sense. 
There is no greater peculiarity of his nature, than the 
impossibility of communicating with the external creation, 
or reaching the sources of its pleasures, except by means 
of his senses. These wonderful contrivances form that 
" golden bowl" by which my soul drinks from the fountains 
of delight, benevolently scattered among material things ; 
and when this pitcher is broken at the fountain, even before 
the silver cord is loosed, my soul is separated entirely from 
this fair and beautiful creation. The Christian religion, 
therefore, addresses itself to cultivate and purify the plea- 
sures of sense. It directs the soul in the choice of proper 
objects for indulging her bodily sensations ; instructs her to 
discriminate between the intended and perverted employ- 



BEDELL. 393 

merits ; teaches her their source ; and in all, advises her to 
receive these gratifications with a worshipful spirit, as 
boons from a benevolent Creator. So that the Christian 
may find ever new delight, as he goes forth into the world 
of sense. His eye never tires of seeing pictures of a 
Heavenly Father's skill and beautiful mind. His ear 
never wearies in listening to the harmonies of Nature, or 
in drinking in the good cheer of human voices, attuned to 
heavenly thoughts, or the comforts and solaces afforded by 
communing with kindred spirits, in a friendship consecrated 
by the love of Christ ; and every pleasant touch of a material 
thing thrills through his soul as the touch of a benevo- 
lent Deity. If the Christian religion had neglected these 
relations of man to a world of sense ; if it had omitted to 
educate, elevate, and purify the pleasures of sensation, it 
would have proved inadequate to its purpose. To have 
dealt so wisely with man in this relation, is to have adapted 
itself most perfectly to the least religious portion of his 
nature. 

Man is an affectionate being. His capacity for enjoying 
society, or appreciating religion, and his happiness in either, 
depend upon the exercise of his affections. Isolate him, 
where neither confidence, love, fear, reverence, nor hope, 
towards God or man, may move within his breast, and his 
heart becomes cold, unsympathetic, and incapable of expe- 
riencing the graces of Christianity ; and his life passes on 
through a cheerless waste, weighed down by a miserable 
burden. Christianity, therefore, spends her strength in 
educating the human affections. Her chief application is, 
not to the mind, but to the heart ; and her most perfect 
development is, not where the intellect most clearly 
perceives the systematic value of truth, but where the 
heart is most thoroughly consecrated, in humble, loving 
sympathy and obedience, to the truth. She strives to 

50 



£94 INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

create, not the clear, crisp, frosty air of speculative belief — 
although by means of it the soul might s*ee more distinctly 
the proportions of religion — but she throws around the 
newly living creature the soft, warm, glowing atmosphere 
of affectionate faith; in which the soul may feel all its 
liveliest emotions, and holiest impulses, and deepest sym- 
pathies, drawn out towards a Being of infinite benevolence. 
Her first lesson to the infant is a lesson of love. The 
mother, who for a time is her offspring's only deity, by 
fostering care elicits the instinct of affection. Her gentle 
teaching gradually lifts the tender emotions to a higher 
source of good. She thus substitutes her God for herself 
in the heart of her child, and educates the instinct into a 
reverential love for its Heavenly Parent. Throughout life, 
Christianity is thus engaged in transferring the affections 
to their nobler objects. She does not interfere with their 
natural direction, but purifies and spiritualizes it. The 
confidence of man in men, in its highest exercise, becomes 
the faith of man in God. The fear and hope which impel 
man through the strifes of life, become the higher motives 
of his religious endurance. And the last lesson of Christi- 
anity to her aged friend, as he totters on the edge of unsa- 
tisfied, and treads upon the verge of satisfying hopes, is, 
that since his affections have outlasted their earthly objects, 
and yet have been educated to an undying strength, they 
must find in an eternal world an everlasting resting-place 
and reciprocation. And so a lifetime of faith, and fear, and 
hope, and love, which through earthly shadows has grasped 
heavenly substance, well introduces the child of God into 
immortal happiness. If Christianity had ignored the 
affectionate nature of man, or left it to grovel amidst 
unworthy objects, she would have failed to answer her high 
purpose. But having devoted herself to developing the 
affections, and leading them to their noblest objects, she 



BEDELL. 



£95 



has completely adapted herself to this distinguished quality 
of man. 

Man is a religious being. Every man must find a God, 
or make one. He craves some object of reverence, devo- 
tion, and trust, beyond his imperfect and impotent self. 
The Christian religion, therefore, meets this necessity. Need 
I say how nobly ? Whatever Deity a human soul pants for, 
Christianity exhibits in our God. If it be Reason, He is 
the highest. If it be Power, He is the mightiest. If it be 
pure Intellect, He is the unembodied Spirit. If it be Will, 
His is irresistible. If it be Providence, He is the Sovereign 
Disposer of all. If it be absolute Benevolence, He is Love. 
This God Christianity presents in every attractive cha- 
racter, suited to the qualities of our nature. He is incom- 
prehensible, therefore reason may reverence and adore. 
He is unchangeable, and therefore faith may repose herself 
at His feet in absolute security. He is sympathizing, and 
therefore imperfection may confidently approach His ear 
with her tale of woe. He is affectionate, and therefore the 
human heart may hopefully ply its arguments learned in 
the school of earthly emotions. He has once condescended 
to become incarnate, and therefore even the human body 
can insure itself of finding a friend in God. The worship 
and service inculcated by Christianity, in the highest degree, 
educates and calls into exercise the powers of our nature. 
Every faculty, sentiment, moral quality, or even bodily 
habit, is demanded for consecration to Jehovah, and each 
finds its greatest happiness when devoted to Him. And 
that which men seek from religion, peacefulness, a quiet 
conscience, sober enjoyment of life, and a tranquil hope of 
immortality, all are given by Christianity. If this religion 
had failed to suit itself to any one attribute of our being, 
or in the effort had failed to present an adequate idea of 
God, it would have proved insufficient for its task. To 



S96 



INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



have presented a perfectly satisfying portion to the soul, is 
to have adapted itself completely to the religious nature 
of man. 

Man is mortal. A brief term of years sums up his 
earthly history; but it would be inconsistent with the 
Divine benevolence, to suppose this creature placed in a 
life however brief, with capacities for rational pleasure, 
without the means of finding it. Our mortal nature cries 
out against any view of the Divine plan which renders this 
world merely an abode of sorrow and disappointment. 
The Divine system of the present existence is indeed to 
" make perfect through suffering ;" yet He appoints that 
even grief shall have its solaces, affliction its comfort, and 
sorrows their antitheses of joy. Amidst all the woes of 
mortality, there is happiness enough, if only men could 
find it. The Christian religion, therefore, devotes no small 
portion of her precepts to teaching how to extract the 
sweets out of the bitter cups of life, — indeed how to turn 
even the base metal of earthly unhappiness into the pure 
gold of true spiritual enjoyment. She instructs us how to 
deal with misfortune so as to make it a friend ; how to 
find sweet uses even in adversity ; how to reap contentment 
out of a seed-time of trial and grief. But more than this, 
she teaches us the surest methods of avoiding earthly 
trouble, by practising honesty, integrity, sobriety, patience, 
forethought, forbearance, and gentleness ; and she affords 
the highest solace in misfortune, by a self-sustaining con- 
sciousness of right. All the pure joys of wisdom, know- 
ledge, and friendship, she accepts. None can appreciate 
them more highly than she, because of her ever calm, 
intelligent, and cheerful spirit. And when at last she 
addresses herself to her departure, it is not, dissatisfied 
with the portion of good already vouchsafed, but hoping 
for a more unmingled portion hereafter. If Christianity 



BEDELL. 



397 



had neglected to provide for the present life, if she had not 
given men a chart of the shoals, and the rocks, and the 
varying winds of this existence, and taught them how to 
sail, so as to escape the most stormy seas, and make the 
least unquiet voyage over the waves of this troublesome 
world, she would have proved greatly deficient as a guide 
to those who are to live here through the experiences of 
three score years and ten. To have provided for the wants 
of mortality, is to have adapted herself most wisely to the 
least happy aspect of our human condition. 

Man is immortal. Every aspiration of our living soul 
demands it; every conclusion of our reasonable spirit 
testifies it. Thought cannot die. The power of will, the 
ability of .compelling what is external to administer to a 
conscious self within, the capacity of affection, the high 
faculty of discriminating between right and wrong, and 
that soul, of which all these are functions, cannot die. 
The seal of immortality is stamped indelibly upon our con- 
sciousness. The Christian religion therefore explicitly re- 
veals an eternal life, in terms so pure and elevating, 
attractive and satisfying, that the human soul, in its least 
spiritual frame, leaps to attain it. But our soul enjoys a 
foretaste of happiness in this life, only in connexion with 
a body ; nor have we the least experience of a disembodied 
condition, nor the least ground in reasoning from expe- 
rience, to anticipate any perfect bliss without a body. We 
know nothing, and can imagine nothing concerning a purely 
spiritual world. Our nature is not formed to live without 
some communication with material things ; but we cannot 
hold intercourse with external nature apart from the body. 
And therefore our prognostications of eternal life, based 
upon experience, all picture an immortal being, compounded 
of soul and body. The Christian religion gives substance 
and shape to this natural idea; she reveals a resurrection 



398 INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF OH111ST1 ANITY. 

and promises immortality to the whole manhood. If she 
spake only of a spiritual life eternal, our souls might be 
satisfied, but our humanity could not rest in hope. But 
since in her representation of everlasting life she combines 
the hope of resurrection with the prospect of immortality; 
she adapts herself marvellously to our perception of that 
eternal life, which human nature demands. 

This adaptation of Christianity to mankind is equally 
striking as respects our social position. We are eminently 
formed for society. Creation was not perfect until a social 
compact had been completed ; nor is it possible to develop 
our nature in isolation. They are natural laws, not reli- 
gious, by which men are placed in families, and families 
formed into tribes and nations. But no religion could be 
intended for man, or exhibit the hand of his Creator, which 
did not recognise these relations, and provide for the faith- 
ful discharge of the duties arising therefrom. And there- 
fore Christianity sets this social seal as a witness to her 
truth. She devotes herself to establishing principles, and 
developing them in precepts belonging to social life. The 
highest possible sanction is given to the principle by exhi- 
biting it in the eternal existence of God. She teaches that 
Jehovah never lived in the desolate solitude of One Per- 
son, but that, from eternity, God existed as Three Persons 
in a perfect Unity. And the absolute harmony, the com- 
plete oneness, the unutterable bliss of that Divine Triunity 
is the model and argument for human fellowship. In hea- 
ven, as upon earth, solitude is unfit for a living soul. And 
that is but a caricature of a religion from God, which 
teaches that a creature, made in His image, can find either 
purity, perfection, or spiritual happiness in seclusion and 
separation from his kind. Christianity, modelling her pre- 
cepts upon what is seen in the perfect social state of heaven, 
so arranges her instructions that every lesson tends to make 



BEDELL. 



399 



the individual a good member of society. She paints in 
fair colours the happiness of family life. She blesses the 
marriage-bond. She takes under her guidance and protec- 
tion every interest of the household as it arises. For every 
relation she inculcates specific duties ; for every violation 
she has a penalty, and for every obedience a natural re- 
ward. And she at least permits us to anticipate that 
social affections, matured according to her laws, shall be 
immortal. With similar solicitude, Christianity has framed 
precepts and announced their sanctions for every relation, 
whether of the state, the Christian fellowship, or the gene- 
ral brotherhood of mankind. Every office has her holy 
sanction ; every officer her authority ; every performance 
of duty, whether command or obedience, equally her ap- 
proval ; and every act of kindness, charity, or benevolence, 
her meed of commendation. So that, if families would 
live, and governors rule, and citizens obey, by her advice, 
peace, and good-will, and the utmost happiness of which 
human society is capable would be the possession, as it is 
the heritage of man. 

If Christianity had failed to see this aptitude of man for 
social enjoyment, or to appease his craving for society ; if 
she had omitted to give it sanction, or neglected to provide 
for its right development, she would have proved unequal 
to her claim, as sent from God. But since she has entirely 
met the case, even to deriving its holiest possible authority 
from the eternal communion of Three Divine Persons in 
one ever blessed Godhead ; and even to descending into 
minute directions for every reciprocal duty, she has shown 
an adaptation to mankind inexplicable, unless her Author 
be Jehovah. 

We may hasten on towards our conclusion ; for the argu- 
ment is rapidly developing. And we need spend but few 



400 INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

moments in illustrating the familiar facts of the adaptation 
of Christianity to our present spiritual condition. 

Man is a fallen being. His present condition, superin- 
duced by sin, is distinguished by depravity. The chief 
feature of this depravity — at least that one which must be 
universally recognised — is powerlessness for good. Every 
one is conscious of a capacity for moral improvement; but 
equally conscious of such an entire unwillingness to under- 
take it as amounts to moral inability. The spiritual defi- 
ciency of our Mien nature is, therefore, not so much an 
insufficient religious sense as an insufficient power of follow- 
ing out religious impressions and aspirations. Whose con- 
scious heart does not lament this insufficiency ? Now this 
needed spiritual power, Christianity undertakes to give. 
By revealing the offices of the Holy Ghost, she exhibits a 
sufficient source for it. Its supply requires nothing less 
than a re-creation of the soul ; and therefore she attributes 
it to a Divine agent. Through the influences of this Holy 
Spirit she entirely eradicates a birth-right depravity, 
implants new holy dispositions, removes the evil bias of 
affections, and directs them all towards God. The spiritual 
nature of a converted man is thus renewed, and his now 
indwelling and inworking spiritual power is sufficient for 
all duties. The Holy Ghost continues such a soul in this 
possession of adequate power, until, by progressive steps, 
under the discipline of trial, it becomes sanctified and meet 
for heaven. But depravity necessarily becomes the parent 
of sin ; and therefore, both natural depravity and actual 
transgression separate man from God. A sinner, either by 
nature or practice, cannot be complacently or favourably 
regarded by a perfect Being. Consequently, the relation 
of fallen man as a sinner to God cries out for a remedy. 
And every man's conscience whom I address to-night echoes 
that cry. Need I tell you how Christianity meets this 



/ 



BEDELL. 401 

call ? how the mighty energy of Heavenly love has wrought 
out a sufficient salvation? The atonement of a Divine 
Person, offered in the nature which had sinned, has been 
accepted by the Triune Jehovah, as satisfactorily vindicat- 
ing His justice and truth ; and therefore has become the 
ground of a universal proclamation of mercy. The holy 
obedience of the same Divine Person in human nature, 
submitting to the law to which He was in no respect sub- 
ject, has been accepted by the Triune Jehovah as a satis- 
factory righteousness, both in essential character and, 
considering the dignity of the obedient Person, infinitely 
more valuable than could be rendered by all men, even in 
their most advanced fallen condition ; and therefore it has 
become the ground of a universal offer of justification. 
This justification is not the actual rendering a sinner righ- 
teous, which could never be, except on the ground of his 
personal obedience ; but it is a gracious act of God, account- 
ing him righteous, or treating him as if he had been righ- 
teous, which may reasonably be done, as well for the sake 
of another as for his own sake. But this proclamation of 
pardon and justification leaves men wholly to their proper 
freedom of choice. The believer chooses to avail himself 
of the mercy. The unbeliever chooses to refuse. After 
this choice of Christ, which is an act of the highest 
reason as well as of the humblest faith, the believer enters 
upon the discharge of all his relations with new and in- 
tensely powerful motives, because he is the adopted child 
of God. The profit of his godliness, in this life, and the 
consequences of his faithfulness in the next, are all his 
own. Whilst, on the other hand, the unbeliever, left to his 
voluntary moral inability, suffers all the practical evils 
attending irreligion in the present, and anticipates the tre- 
mendous weight of misery which must follow persevering 
sin in an eternal existence. 
51 



402 INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The only distinguishable note of objection to the harmony 
of this scheme will not escape the ear of a sceptic, yet we 
think it a wonderful commentary on the truth of our argu- 
ment. A fallen man is free to choose, and yet he will not 
choose aright, unless the Holy Spirit give him power. It is 
true. The facts are so ; on both sides, testified by expe- 
rience. And therefore Christianity meets them in her 
remedy. If she had been a human invention, she would 
have attempted to alter the nature of her man, or the 
character of her God, so as to have prevented the least 
appearance of jarring in her scheme. But now Christianity, 
made by God for man, approaches and deals with man as 
he is. She finds him a free agent, and she leaves him so. 
She finds him morally impotent, and she gives him spiritual 
power. Without attempting to reconcile, she addresses 
herself simply to the facts of the case ; and it is a con- 
vincing proof of her Divine original. If now, in any one 
of these particulars, Christianity had been inadequate, she 
had not been the offspring of God. But since, by her 
provided plan of salvation, she has adapted herself equally 
to all the attributes of God, and to all the spiritual neces- 
sities and natural peculiarities of fallen man, it cannot be 
that her Maker is less than Divine. 

This Christianity was not created for a class, or a nation, 
or a time. She might have been divinely sent, though not 
adapted for all mankind; but how much more evident is 
her divinity, when there lives not a human creature on 
this broad earth for whom she has not a mission of heavenly 
love, and to whom she does not bring a boon of heavenly 
enjoyment ! She was created for every class. With equal 
freedom, her steps bend toward either extreme of social 
position ; and although she dwells more constantly with the 
humble in rank, it is only because of their meekness and 
lowliness of heart. She scorns the proud, and depresses 



BEDELL. 



403 



all arrogance and presumption, whilst she elevates the 
truly good to the highest walks of the Divine life. If 
Socialism is to find a rational type, Christianity must 
present it ; for there is no other system which can produce 
an actual equality of character amidst necessary inequality 
of condition, and harmonize the two. All orders of society 
may be blest alike. All honest professions and business 
may alike claim her guidance and protection ; and in every 
case she advances the best interests of men. 

She was created for every nation. Her language is a 
universal tongue. Her heart bears universal charity ; open- 
ing itself with equal warmth to every people. She was 
created for every time. Her religion never grows anti- 
quated ; neither improves by age, nor deteriorates by use ; 
and knows no shadow of change. But amongst all gene- 
rations, showing the same foundation rock implanted deep 
as the throne of God, and opening the same safe refuge 
built by the unchanging hand of God, is the perpetual 
security and hope of all believers. She was created for 
every circumstance. Her sympathies flow out with equal 
readiness to the sorrows or the joys of men ; and although 
she lingers longest within, and oftenest frequents the house 
of mourning, it is not because unsuited to the merry- 
hearted, but because most sought and prized by those who 
most need her consolations. And what is most remarkable, 
at every time, in every nation, through all conditions of 
life, a perfect reception of Christianity produces perfect 
oneness of character. Everywhere the true Christian bears 
a likeness to Christ Jesus. Nor is it less remarkable that 
this similarity in type, is consistent with the utmost di- 
versity in natural characteristics. A religion of human 
origin would demand in its votaries sameness. The religion 
of God produces unity. A Christian man loses nothing of 
his individuality, but superadds an identity of God-likeness. 



404 



INTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



To have attempted the impossible task of so changing 
human character and constitution, as to make all men look, 
or think, or speak, or act alike, would have been to falsify 
the claims of Christianity to a Divine original. To have 
accomplished the labour of producing essential spiritual 
unity amidst equally essential natural diversity, is to have 
adapted itself to the varying characters and circumstances 
of men, and to have vindicated in the fullest extent its 
claim to be Divinely created. 

Thus, then, the problem is worked out. Here is a world 
of men, naturally — rational, sensual, affectionate, religious, 
mortal, and immortal ; socially — bound by curiously inter- 
lacing ties of family, civil, and general relations ; spiritually — 
fallen and depraved, yet capable of indefinite moral im- 
provement, and consciously destined for present and eternal 
happiness. And here is a religion, holy, benevolent, con- 
sistent with itself, God-like, adapted to every natural pe- 
culiarity and providential circumstance, raising the fallen, 
restoring the lost, and giving temporal and everlasting 
felicity to every conscientious believer. 

The present argument is not, that a religious system so 
harmonious, beneficent, and pure, could not be the offspring 
of human wit, but, that no being, except the Maker of man, 
could so precisely adapt a religion to man. The force of 
the argument lies in the adaptation, and increases in power 
just in proportion as you multiply — and you may multiply 
indefinitely— the points upon which the agreement must be 
founded. Whoever was the maker of mankind was the 
maker of Christianity. Indeed, you can much more easily 
believe that this human being spontaneously grew out of 
the elements of a physical world with which he is entirely 
kindred, than that this creature, having been found by 
chance, created for himself such a religion out of the ele- 
ments of a spiritual world, with which he was entirely 



BEDELL. 



405 



uncongenial. It was a Divine work to form dust into this 
marvellous human body, and to breathe into it a breath 
of His own eternal life. It was a Divine work to produce 
unity of being out of complexity of faculties, affections, 
dispositions, and relations. It was a Divine work to per- 
fect such a being, even in the midst of all the favouring 
circumstances of a perfect Paradise. But when that being- 
stood outside the gates of Eden, his nature all disordered, 
the image of God in his soul fractured and destroyed, a 
fallen, ruined, cursed man, in the midst of a creation cursed, 
a candidate for earthly sorrow, and an heir of immortal 
woe ; to contrive a religion which, adapting itself entirely 
to his nature and the disaster, should restore spiritual har- 
mony, revive the likeness to God, renew the heart, forgive 
the sin, remove the worst features of the curse, and make 
more than amends by an eternity of bliss; which should 
reach the case of every man, under all circumstances, in 
every nation, and in all time ; which should produce the 
same essentially peaceful and holy results in the hearts 
and lives of all who embrace it ; and yet should not force 
any man out of his sphere, or alter the natural characteris- 
tics which give identity to each ; — to adapt such a Christi- 
anity to lost mankind is no other than the work of God. 

If it be a proof of heavenly skill to adapt this human 
being to the world in which it dwells, much more is it a 
proof of heavenly skill to adapt a perfectly satisfactory 
religion to the spiritual nature and the actual condition of 
such a being in such a world. And if adaptation prove 
design, and the accomplishment of such a design prove the 
presence of an infinitely perfect Designer, then is it proved 
that Christianity is from God. 



Extract from Bishop Potter s Address to the Diocese of Penn- 
sylvania, May, 1854. 



In conjunction with the Secretary of the Convention and 
the President of the Standing Committee, I took measures, 
last autumn, to procure a course of Sunday evening Lec- 
tures on the Evidences of Keligion to be delivered in the 
churches of Philadelphia during the winter months. 
Bishops and Presbyters were invited from different parts 
of the country to take part in it ; and the Discourses, marked 
by great, and, in several instances, by pre-eminent ability, 
were directed more especially to relieve the difficulties of 
thoughtful young men whose minds, to an extent much to 
be deplored, are in danger of being infected with a specious 
but hollow scepticism which shelters itself under the abused 
names of Science and Philosophy. The result of this 
experiment has been, to exalt the estimation in which our 
clergy are held for learning and mental power, and to 
demonstrate how utterly disproportioned are the arrogant 
pretensions of speculative unbelief to its actual resources. 
In a published form these Lectures are likely to prove a 
permanent and valuable contribution to a branch of Theo- 
logical Literature which must be revised from time to time, 
if we would adapt our Apologies for Eevealed Eeligion to 
the actual, and, in some instances, most urgent, wants of 
the minds with which we deal. For a Church to decline 

(407) 



403 EXTRACT FROM BISHOP POTTER'S ADDRESS. 

considering the plausible objections which, in an age of such 
prodigious intellectual activity as this, inevitably and con- 
tinually spring up under the pretended auspices of Physi- 
cal Science and Metaphysical Philosophy, is tacitly but 
virtually to confess her incompetence for no small part of 
her appointed work. No such Church can hope to exert a 
commanding influence over the culture of our age or land ; 
and its hold even upon the active energies of the people 
runs the constant hazard of being weakened or destroyed 
by the suspicion of incapacity. A Church which ceases to 
teach, and one which does not strive to raise a portion of 
its teaching to a level with the very highest intelligence 
around it, is not following in the footsteps of the Apostolic 
College, nor in those of that early and, in human sense, 
defenceless church which went in three centuries from the 
humble spot where all the disciples were "with one accord 
in one place" to a more than regal sway over the heart of 
the world. We owe much to the Rev. Dr. Stevens for the 
enlightened suggestions and the vigilant and laborious super- 
vision which he gave to this enterprise. 



THE END. 



E. B. HEARS, STEREOTYPER. C. SHERMAN, PRINTER. 



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